Milan-based tech conglomerate Bending Spoons recently made headlines with its $500 million acquisition of Eventbrite, integrating the popular event ticketing platform into its expanding portfolio of consumer tech brands. This latest deal underscores the 12-year-old company's quiet rise as one of the tech industry's most prolific acquirers, despite its relatively low public profile.
What is Bending Spoons?
Despite its catchy name, Bending Spoons has largely operated under the radar, gaining public attention primarily through its high-profile acquisitions. Unlike traditional private equity firms, Bending Spoons focuses on acquiring popular, often underperforming, digital businesses and transforming them for greater efficiency and user engagement. This strategy frequently involves significant restructuring, including layoffs and controversial changes to beloved products, as seen with Evernote and WeTransfer.
Yet, the Milan-based tech conglomerate's own brand remains obscure, even as its portfolio serves over a billion people, boasting 300 million monthly active users and 10 million paying customers. With a team of 400-500 employees, dubbed "Spooners," Bending Spoons positions itself as a transformer of existing digital services.
Bending Spoons didn't begin as an acquisition powerhouse. Its origins trace back to Evertale, a Copenhagen startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011 and launched the photo-sharing app Wink. After Evertale's collapse, its founders, including current CEO Luca Ferrari, and a few employees pivoted from building in-house apps to an acquisition-focused strategy, a journey Ferrari recounted in a rare interview on the 20VC venture podcast.
With the notable exception of Immuni, Italy's official COVID-19 contact tracing app developed and donated in 2020, Bending Spoons has consistently refined its acquisition model. The company targets popular products that, while not necessarily failing, are often stagnant, neglected, or have owners seeking an exit. Post-acquisition, Bending Spoons is an active owner, implementing comprehensive changes to user experience, features, underlying technology, monetization strategies (including pricing), and team structure, often leading to significant headcount adjustments. While this approach shares similarities with private equity, Bending Spoons distinguishes itself by its stated goal to "hold forever," emphasizing that it has never sold an acquired business, thus building a dynamic portfolio rather than a collection of internet relics.
What companies has Bending Spoons acquired?
While Bending Spoons made several smaller acquisitions between 2014 and 2021, including the AI photo enhancer Remini, its most significant deals have occurred more recently:
- In 2022, it acquired Filmic, a popular video and photo editing app, followed by the layoff of its entire staff in December 2023.
- Also announced in 2022 and finalized in early 2023 was the acquisition of Evernote, the note-taking app once valued at $1 billion. This deal led to layoffs and restrictions on Evernote’s free offering.
- The first half of 2024 saw a flurry of activity with the acquisitions of community-building platform Meetup, app maker Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard.
- July 2024 brought the additions of digital publishing platform Issuu and file transfer service WeTransfer, where Bending Spoons subsequently cut staff and imposed stricter limits on its free plan.
- Later in 2024, Bending Spoons announced it would spend $233 million on an all-cash deal to take video platform Brightcove private.
- Acquisitions continued into 2025 with route planner Komoot and management software maker Harvest.
- The company also declared its intent to acquire Vimeo in a $1.38 billion all-cash deal, and subsequently AOL from Yahoo for an undisclosed sum. Both Vimeo and AOL acquisitions are pending regulatory and stockholder approvals.
- Most recently, Bending Spoons secured Eventbrite for $500 million, a significant discount from the company’s $1.76 billion valuation when it went public in 2018.
How much is Bending Spoons worth?
As of October 2025, Bending Spoons has achieved "decacorn" status, valued at over $10 billion, making it one of Europe's few tech companies to reach this milestone. This surge follows its latest funding round, which secured $270 million from investors including T. Rowe Price, and earlier backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, and Fidelity, alongside a $440 million secondary share sale. This propelled its valuation from $2.8 billion in 2024 to an impressive $11 billion, elevating its four co-founders – CEO Luca Ferrari ($1.4 billion stake) and Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello (each with $1.3 billion stakes, per Forbes estimates) – into the billionaire ranks.
While the company declined to comment on co-founder stock sales in the secondary transaction, Bending Spoons has attracted significant equity financing several times over the years, including rounds in September 2022 and early 2024. Its cap table boasts a diverse array of high-profile investors, from tennis legend Andre Agassi and actor Bradley Cooper to tech luminaries Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Niel, and music stars like The Weeknd and The Chainsmokers.
What's next?
With its recent funding, Bending Spoons is poised for continued expansion, earmarking capital for future acquisitions and investments in its proprietary technology and AI capabilities. This includes $2.8 billion in debt financing specifically for the AOL deal and subsequent acquisitions. The company explicitly states its intention to pursue new acquisitions that broaden its consumer and enterprise digital product portfolio, now with the financial muscle to target more prominent brands like Eventbrite, AOL, and Vimeo.
AOL, despite its age, still boasts significant reach, with Bending Spoons reporting 8 million daily active users and 30 million monthly active users, placing it among the top 10 email providers globally. (Not long before acquiring AOL, Bending Spoons was also rumored to be eyeing Typeform, the Barcelona-based SaaS company known for its form creation tools, and app maker Elysium.)
To fuel this ambitious growth, Bending Spoons is actively recruiting across various roles, with initial work from its Milan headquarters before offering options for London, Madrid, Warsaw, or remote work. Despite characterizing itself as a "demanding environment," the company reported over 600,000 job applications in 2025, a number expected to rise with its increasing market visibility.
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