Bending Spoons, the Milan-based technology conglomerate that made headlines with its acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo, went public on the Nasdaq this week, briefly pushing its market capitalization above $25 billion.
Although Bending Spoons' stock price has declined slightly since then, its market capitalization remains double its previous private valuation of $11 billion, confirming investor interest in the company's strategy and portfolio, which includes digital brands such as Meetup, Eventbrite, and WeTransfer.
Vending Spoons' strategy is similar to private equity, except it retains the brands it acquires. Its focus is on furthering the economic success of companies, not only by leveraging technology and AI, but also often through controversial price hikes and layoffs.
Speaking to TechCrunch, co-founder and chief product officer Matteo Danieli said part of the scrutiny is due to the fact that products like Evernote are truly loved by users. But despite all the changes, customer retention has remained “very stable,” he said.
Bending Spoons' own user base has grown significantly over its 13 years, especially in the last few years. As of March 2026, the company's portfolio serves more than 500 million monthly active users and more than 9 million monthly paying customers, according to filings.
This also goes against the idea of Bending Spoons buying a dead company. Entrepreneur Joe Harkin has been fighting this idea ever since he sold his digital publishing platform Issuu to an Italian in 2024.
“'Old Internet brand' is the wrong framework,” Harkin wrote on LinkedIn after the IPO. “They take products that reflect real customer behavior and integrate them into a unified system of product, engineering, data, monetization, AI, and operational discipline.” This seems to be working. Bending Spoons reported revenue of $1.31 billion in 2025. But its market capitalization suggests investors expect more.
How did Bending Spoons start?
A little-known backstory is that Bending Spoons was born from the ashes of Evertale, a Copenhagen-based startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011's Startup Alley and raised seed funding for photo-sharing app Wink.
Evertale failed soon after, allowing investors to exit, but the founders and a few employees continued to collaborate initially on an internal app. Soon the team made its first acquisition, and then many more, CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari told venture podcast 20VC in one of his rare interviews before the company decided to go public.
In 2020, Bending Spoons made an exception to its policy of not manufacturing its own products when it created and donated Italy's official COVID-19 contact tracing app, Immuni. But other than that, the company has mainly been honing its equation. The idea is to identify popular products that could be improved inside and out and buy them from owners who have reached their limits in some way.
This approach has long been at odds with VC, and Bending Spoons remained a standalone development for years. However, it ultimately raised equity funding several times, including in 2022, 2024, and 2025. Prior to the IPO, the company had VIP backers including tech giants Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger and Xavier Neal. Starring Andre Agassi, Bradley Cooper, Maluma, The Weeknd, and The Chainsmokers.
What happens after the Bending Spoons acquisition?
Since the acquisition, Bending Spoons has not been a passive owner and has made changes to the product's user experience and functionality, as well as the underlying technology. Monetization strategies, including pricing. Team organization, including number of employees.
While the focus on efficiency and profitability overlaps with private equity strategies, Bending Spoons argues there are important differences. This means that “we aim to hold the company forever and have never sold the acquired businesses.'' Rather than managing a technology graveyard, the company is building a living portfolio.
What companies has Bending Spoons acquired?
Bending Spoons acquired several companies between 2014 and 2021, including AI-powered photo enhancement service Remini, but its most notable acquisition came recently.
In 2022, it acquired Filmic, a popular video and photo editing app, and laid off all staff in December 2023.
In a deal also announced in 2022 and completed in early 2023, Bending Spoons also acquired notes app Evernote, which was reportedly valued at $1 billion before it ran into trouble. The acquisition was followed by layoffs and cuts to Evernote's free offering.
The first half of the following year, 2024, was particularly active, with the acquisitions of Meetup, app maker Mosaic Group, and Hopin's StreamYard all happening within six months.
In July 2024, it acquired publishing platform Issuu and file transfer service WeTransfer, then cut staff, changed its free plan, and introduced stricter restrictions. In December 2025, WeTransfer co-founder Nalden criticized Bending Spoons' decision and said he was building another file transfer service.
In November 2024, Bending Spoons announced it would spend $233 million in an all-cash take-private deal to acquire video platform Brightcove. Acquisitions by route planner Komoot and management software maker Harvest continued rapidly in early 2025.
Bending Spoons also acquired Vimeo in an all-cash deal for $1.38 billion, and shortly after announced its intention to acquire AOL from Yahoo for an undisclosed amount. (Disclosure: AOL and Yahoo are both former owners of TechCrunch, with Yahoo retaining a small interest.)
In December 2025, Bending Spoons announced the acquisition of another well-known brand, Eventbrite. And the purchase price was only about $500 million, a far cry from the $1.76 billion the company was valued at when it went public in 2018.
The Vimeo deal closed in late 2025, followed by large-scale layoffs that affected most of its employees, including the entire video team. Acquisitions of AOL, Eventbrite, and Tractive were also completed this year.
What's next for Bending Spoon?
Four of Bending Spoons' co-founders have remained at its helm for many years: Matteo Danieli, Luca Ferrari, Francesco Patarnello and Luca Querella. The IPO made them billionaires, at least on paper, and kept them in control of the company with more than 80% of the voting rights.
Some of their decisions affect workers. The company says it has added “1,830 full-time equivalent team members through the acquisitions of AOL, Eventbrite, and Vimeo,” many of whom have already “parted ways” and will continue to do so. “Once the transformation of the three businesses is substantially complete in the second half of 2026, we expect only a few hundred companies will remain.”
This reduction in personnel will probably not affect the number of “spooners”. This term is reserved for a select number of core team members who have gone through a very selective hiring process. Currently, that number is around 620, but that number is not growing rapidly. In 2025, only 286 people were hired out of approximately 800,000 job applications.
While core employee numbers may not have increased much, productivity has. “Thanks in part to advances in AI, revenue per full-time equivalent Spooner increased from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025 and $970,000 in the first quarter of 2026,” the company said. This allows the company to escape SaaS and hopes to continue to benefit from it.
“Our ability to grow revenue from acquired businesses could improve at a time when many companies are struggling to adapt,” Vending Spoons said. Additionally, “increased environmental uncertainty may provide opportunities to acquire businesses at more favorable valuations.”
Despite what appears to be an opportune situation, Bending Spoons remains selective in its acquisitions and continues to cast a wide net. In 2025, the company raised more than 2,500 acquisition opportunities, conducted detailed analysis on approximately 200 of them, and completed six acquisitions, according to its own report. More will definitely follow – that's the strategy.
“We have identified more than 1,000 digital companies (both private and public) that could represent attractive acquisition targets in the future, representing nearly $400 billion in total estimated revenue in 2025,” Ferrari said in a letter on behalf of the Vending Spoons team.
The strategy remains unchanged, but the hint of going private is a reminder that the company “paid $10,000 for its first acquisition” and is now “pursuing multi-billion dollar acquisitions.”
What happens next may be even more intense. “AI will enable us to accomplish more with fewer people and should also improve the scalability of our acquisition and transformation models,” Ferrari predicted.
This story was originally published in October 2025 and will be updated regularly with new information.
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