Miro’s $1.36B Sale Is a Reality Check for SaaS Startups

Miro isn't a failed startup. That's what makes its sale price so interesting.

Bending Spoons has agreed to acquire workplace collaboration company Miro at an enterprise value of approximately $1.355 billion, with the deal expected to close in the fourth quarter subject to approvals.

That's an enormous exit by ordinary startup standards.

But Miro was once valued at roughly $17.5 billion during the pandemic-era technology boom.

A company can therefore be worth more than a billion dollars and still become a cautionary tale about startup valuations.

Miro caught the perfect wave

Remote work transformed Miro.

Its digital whiteboards provided companies with a way to recreate brainstorming and collaboration sessions when employees could no longer gather around the same physical table.

Usage surged.

Enterprise adoption followed.

Investors rewarded that growth with one of the largest valuations in workplace software.

Then the market changed.

Employees returned to offices.

Businesses became more selective about software subscriptions.

Companies started consolidating multiple tools into broader suites.

And the venture market stopped assigning extreme revenue multiples to SaaS companies.

Miro kept growing.

Its valuation did not.

This isn't a distressed business

That's what makes the acquisition particularly notable.

Bending Spoons says Miro generates around $600 million in annual recurring revenue, with close to 90% coming from business and enterprise customers. More than 250,000 organizations use the platform.

This isn't a startup that ran out of customers.

It's a mature software company whose business value no longer matches the price private investors once imagined it might eventually reach.

The distinction matters.

Startup valuations are not the same thing as cash.

They reflect assumptions about future growth.

When those assumptions change, billions of dollars of paper value can disappear without the underlying company disappearing.

2021 valuations are still unwinding

The technology boom of 2020 and 2021 created unusually generous valuations.

Interest rates were low.

Software adoption was accelerating.

Investors believed many SaaS companies would maintain exceptional growth for years.

Companies were priced accordingly.

Then growth normalized.

Higher interest rates changed how investors valued future revenue.

Software budgets tightened.

And generative AI introduced another question: will today's SaaS products remain standalone applications, or will AI consolidate many workflows into broader platforms?

Miro's acquisition shows that the reset is still working its way through private markets.

AI also changes the competitive equation

Miro has repositioned itself around what it calls an AI innovation workspace, adding AI-supported workflows and other features.

But essentially every major productivity company is doing something similar.

Microsoft.

Google.

Canva.

Figma.

Atlassian.

Notion.

AI makes software more powerful.

It also gives large platforms another reason to bundle capabilities that startups once sold separately.

That can make life particularly difficult for mature SaaS companies competing between startups below them and platform giants above them.

Bending Spoons sees value where venture investors once saw hypergrowth

For Bending Spoons, that may be exactly the opportunity.

The company has developed a strategy around acquiring recognizable technology products and operating them for long-term profitability.

Miro brings a huge user base, substantial recurring revenue and strong enterprise penetration.

What disappeared wasn't the product.

It was the valuation multiple.

What happens next?

Miro's deal could become one of the clearest examples of the post-2021 SaaS reset.

For founders, the lesson isn't that billion-dollar valuations are meaningless.

It's that valuations built around extraordinary future growth eventually have to meet ordinary business reality.

Miro built a major software company.

It simply didn't become the $17.5 billion company investors once priced it to become.