Bending Spoons, the Italian app company that owns Evernote and Meetup, plans to lay off 75% of the staff at file-transfer service WeTransfer, TechCrunch has learned. Bending Spoons acquired the Dutch company in July for an undisclosed amount.
The company confirmed WeTransfer's layoff plans to TechCrunch. Employees who will be let go will be notified once Bending Spoons has gone through local regulations regarding layoffs in each country. Dutch media reported that WeTransfer has more than 350 employees.
Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari said the company typically researches the organizations it acquires to determine the best vision for the business going forward, with the aim of operating it in perpetuity.
“Once the vision is clear, we try to close the gap between the current situation and the vision as quickly and completely as possible. Typically, this requires making major changes in many areas, including in the organization. We do not like to make painful or unpopular decisions, but we are prepared to do so if we believe it is the right thing to do to help the business thrive,” he said.
Ferrari also noted that with WeTransfer, Bending Spoons wanted a small, focused team.
“In this case, the vision we have created is a smaller, more focused WeTransfer organization that we believe is better positioned to contribute to WeTransfer's success in the long term,” the CEO said.
Since the acquisition, WeTransfer has introduced a new feature that lets users extend the expiration date of links on the app, but neither Bending Spoons nor WeTransfer have revealed any plans for their long-term product roadmap.
The cuts are not surprising, as Bending Spoons regularly reduces the number of employees at companies it acquires in order to operate profitably. In February 2023, it cut 129 staff members at Evernote. In December 2023, it laid off all employees at Filmic, a popular photo and video editing app it acquired in 2022. Earlier this year, Meetup also faced cuts after being acquired.
In February, Bending Spoons raised $155 million in equity funding from new investor Durable Capital Partners and existing investors including Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, NB Renaissance, NUO Capital and StarTIP (managed by Tamburi Investment Partners).