Bending Spoons, a 12-year-old tech conglomerate based in Milan, has quietly become one of the tech industry's most prolific buyers, now owning companies such as Meetup and WeTransfer, among many others, but is largely unknown to the public.
So what exactly is Bending Spoon? Despite its catchy name, the company attracts significantly less attention and usually only makes headlines when it adds another well-known brand to its portfolio. The latest is Eventbrite, which it agreed to acquire for $500 million last December.
But Bending Spoons is neither a traditional private equity firm nor a pure financial investment vehicle. Its focus is on acquiring underperforming but popular tech brands and transforming them to serve millions of users more efficiently.
The company tends to make headlines when it reorganizes acquired companies, often with significant job cuts, or makes controversial changes to popular products, as it did with both Evernote and WeTransfer.
Bending Spoons remains largely unknown, even though its product portfolio serves more than 1 billion people, has more than 300 million monthly active users, and more than 10 million paying customers. Here's what you need to know about this company that's reinventing some of the internet's most famous brands.
What is a bendable spoon?
Bending Spoons describes itself as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. The company, which has grown to 400 to 500 employees (which the company calls “Spooner”), is primarily focused on improving products and services created by others.
But it didn't start like that. Bending Spoons' founders tried their hand at building their own apps and products before ultimately shifting their focus.
tech crunch event
San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026
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 a rare interview.
In 2020, Bending Spoons made an exception when it created and donated Italy's official COVID-19 contact tracing app, Immuni. But other than that, the company has mainly honed its formula. Bending Spoons identifies popular products that can be improved inside and out and purchases them from owners who have reached their limits.
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 collecting internet relics or curating a tech graveyard, you're building a living portfolio.
To be clear, Bending Spoons' previous acquisition targets weren't necessarily failed businesses, many of which still had significant user bases and revenue. But they tended to be stagnant, ignored, or have owners looking to exit. Let's summarize what happened in these important deals and their aftermath.
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 continued rapidly into 2025, with route planner Komoot and management software maker Harvest also acquired.
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, and Yahoo has a small interest in the company.)
At the time, Bending Spoons said the acquisition of AOL and Vimeo was expected to close by the end of 2025, subject to standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals. In the case of Vimeo, this includes recently granted shareholder approvals.
There were also layoffs after the Vimeo acquisition was completed. This information was confirmed to Business Insider by Bending Spoons, which declined to say how many people would lose their jobs.
In December 2025, Bending Spoons announced the acquisition of yet another well-known brand, Eventbrite. Again, that reward is likely to be far less than Eventbrite was once worth — only about $500 million, a far cry from the $1.76 billion valuation the company was valued at when it went public in 2018.
However, there may be additional hurdles. Earlier this month, Eventbrite shareholders filed a lawsuit in Delaware seeking to overturn the deprivation agreement over voting rights, and Eventbrite is now working to expedite the challenge.
How much is Bending Spoon worth?
Since October 2025, Bending Spoons has been one of Europe's rare tech decacorns (companies valued at over $10 billion).
This follows Bending Spoons' latest round of funding, including $270 million from investors including T. Rowe Price and previous backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity, as well as a $440 million secondary stock sale by existing shareholders.
The company last raised money in 2024 at a valuation of $2.8 billion, and its latest valuation is $11 billion, a significant step up for the four co-founders who ended up joining the ranks of billionaires.
Ferrari's stake in Bending Spoons is now reportedly worth $1.4 billion, with co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella and Francesco Patarnello each holding a stake worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates based on shareholder data published by the Italian Business Register.
It is unclear whether any of the co-founders sold their shares in secondary transactions. Vending Spoons declined to comment on its co-founder's stake.
Vending Spoons has long been bootstrapped, but has raised equity funding several times in the past, including in September 2022 and early 2024. Also on the cap table are VIPs such as tennis and entertainment stars Andre Agassi and Bradley Cooper. technology industry heavyweights Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Neal; and performers The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, and Maluma.
When announcing new funding in October 2025, Bending Spoons said it would support future acquisitions and investments in proprietary technology and AI capabilities. This comes on top of the $2.8 billion in debt financing the company disclosed when it announced its intention to acquire AOL, debt that will fund the AOL transaction and future acquisitions.
What's next?
Bending Spoons said it intends to continue pursuing new acquisitions that expand its portfolio of consumer and enterprise digital products, and has secured funding to acquire even more prominent targets in the future, as confirmed by its decision to acquire Eventbrite.
AOL and Vimeo already have far greater visibility than previous targets, but AOL's terms remain private. Properties also have some range. When announcing the partnership with AOL, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL remains among the top 10 most used email providers in the world, with 8 million daily active users and 30 million monthly active users. (Shortly before acquiring AOL, Bending Spoons was also rumored to be eyeing app maker Elysium and Typeform, a Barcelona-based SaaS company known for its form creation tools.)
Perhaps to support its continued acquisition efforts, the company is recruiting for a variety of roles, with new hires initially working at its headquarters in Milan and then having the option of working from offices in London, Madrid, Warsaw, or remotely.
Indeed, despite Bending Spoons warning candidates of a “tough environment”, the company says it has already received more than 600,000 job applications for 2025, and this number is likely to rise further as recent deals attract further attention.
Apart from candidates, Bending Spoons also interviews banks. According to reports, the company is in talks with multiple financial institutions for an IPO on the NYSE. Ferrari told Reuters in November that if it decided to go public, Vending Spoons could be listed in the United States, where high-tech companies tend to have higher valuations.
This story was originally published in October 2025 and will be updated regularly with new information.