Unveiling Bending Spoons: The Surprising Owner of AOL and Vimeo Now Making Waves in the Public Market

This week, Bending Spoons, a tech company based in Milan known for its acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo, made its debut on the Nasdaq, momentarily achieving a market valuation of over $25 billion.

Although the company’s stock has experienced a minor decline since then, its market cap is still twice its former private valuation of $11 billion, showcasing strong investor interest in its business model and diverse portfolio, which features digital brands including Meetup, Eventbrite, and WeTransfer.

Bending Spoons employs a strategy similar to that of private equity, focusing on enhancing the brands it acquires rather than letting them fade away. The company aims to boost their financial performance using technology and AI, often implementing price increases and workforce reductions, which have sparked some controversy.

In a discussion with TechCrunch, co-founder and chief product officer Matteo Danieli addressed some of the criticism, pointing out that beloved products like Evernote often attract scrutiny. However, he noted that customer retention has remained “remarkably stable” despite significant changes.

Bending Spoons itself has seen considerable growth over its 13 years, especially in recent years. By March 2026, its portfolio was reported to have over 500 million monthly active users and more than 9 million monthly paying customers, according to its filings.

This counters the narrative that Bending Spoons acquires struggling companies, a viewpoint that entrepreneur Joe Hyrkin has pushed back against since selling his digital publishing platform Issuu to the company in 2024.

“Characterizing them as ‘old internet brands’ is misguided,” Hyrkin shared on LinkedIn post-IPO. “They bring in products with real customer engagement before integrating them into a centralized system of product, engineering, data, monetization, AI, and operational discipline.” This approach appears to be successful, as Bending Spoons announced a revenue of $1.31 billion in 2025, with its market cap suggesting that investors expect even more in the future.

Origins of Bending Spoons

The lesser-known origin story of Bending Spoons traces back to Evertale, a Copenhagen startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011’s Startup Alley, raising seed funding for a photo-sharing app named Wink. After Evertale’s early failure, its founders and a handful of employees decided to collaborate on developing in-house apps, leading to their first acquisition and many others, as CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari revealed in an interview.

In 2020, the company made an exception to its usual policy of not developing its own products when it created and donated Immuni, Italy’s official contact-tracing app for COVID-19. For the most part, Bending Spoons has been focused on a successful formula: identifying valuable products ripe for improvement and acquiring them from owners who have hit their limits.

This strategy diverged from typical VC approaches, leading Bending Spoons to remain bootstrapped for several years. Over time, however, it raised equity funding at intervals, particularly in 2022, 2024, and 2025. By the time of its IPO, it boasted notable backers from the tech world, including Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Niel, along with celebrities like Andre Agassi, Bradley Cooper, Maluma, The Weeknd, and The Chainsmokers.

Post-Acquisition Process at Bending Spoons

Following an acquisition, Bending Spoons is an active participant, making substantial alterations to the user experience, product features, core technology, monetization strategies—including pricing—and organizational structure.

Although this focus on efficiency aligns with private equity tactics, Bending Spoons emphasizes a key distinction: it “aims to hold forever” and has never sold an acquired enterprise, developing a living portfolio rather than overseeing a graveyard of failed tech projects.

Acquisitions by Bending Spoons

Between 2014 and 2021, Bending Spoons acquired various companies, including the AI-driven photo enhancement app Remini, but its most significant acquisitions occurred more recently.

In 2022, it bought Filmic, famous for its video and photo editing applications, and laid off the entire staff in December 2023.

Another notable transaction also announced in 2022 involved the acquisition of Evernote, a note-taking application once valued at $1 billion. Following this deal, the company faced layoffs and reductions to Evernote’s free services.

The first half of 2024 was impressive for the company, with acquisitions of Meetup, the app maker Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard completed within a six-month period.

In July 2024, it secured the publishing platform Issuu and the file transfer service WeTransfer, later making staff reductions and revising the limits of WeTransfer’s free offerings. In December 2025, WeTransfer’s co-founder Nalden criticized the company’s decisions and stated he was working on a new file transfer service.

In November 2024, Bending Spoons announced a $233 million cash deal to acquire video platform Brightcove. The momentum continued into early 2025 with acquisitions of route planner Komoot and management software producer Harvest.

The company announced plans to acquire Vimeo for $1.38 billion and to purchase AOL from Yahoo for an undisclosed amount. In December 2025, Bending Spoons also revealed plans to acquire Eventbrite for about $500 million, a significant drop from its $1.76 billion valuation when it went public in 2018.

The Vimeo acquisition was completed in the latter part of 2025 and followed by substantial layoffs affecting much of the workforce, including the entire video team. In addition, acquisitions of AOL, Eventbrite, and Tractive were finalized that same year.

The Future of Bending Spoons

Bending Spoons remains under the guidance of its four co-founders: Matteo Danieli, Luca Ferrari, Francesco Patarnello, and Luca Querella. Their public offering transformed them into billionaires on paper while retaining over 80% voting power within the company.

Some decisions will certainly impact employees; the company stated it added “1,830 full-time equivalent team members through the acquisitions of AOL, Eventbrite, and Vimeo,” but has already begun significant layoffs, with expectations of continued reductions. “Once transformations of these three businesses are mostly complete later in 2026, we anticipate only a few hundred will remain.”

These reductions likely won’t impact the number of “Spooners,” the term for a select group of core team members who have undergone a rigorous hiring process. Currently, there are about 620 Spooners, and growth has been modest; in 2025, the company hired only 286 from around 800,000 applicants.

While the core team hasn’t expanded dramatically, productivity has surged. Thanks to advancements in AI, revenue per full-time equivalent Spooner increased from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025, with $0.97 million recorded in Q1 2026. This growth allowed them to navigate the SaaS reckoning and capitalize on its developments.

“As many companies struggle to adjust, our ability to enhance an acquired business’s earnings may improve,” Bending Spoons noted. Moreover, “an atmosphere of heightened uncertainty might provide us the chance to purchase companies at more reasonable prices.”

Despite recognizing a favorable environment, Bending Spoons remains discerning in its acquisitions. By its own account, it explored over 2,500 opportunities in 2025, performing thorough analyses on approximately 200, and closing six acquisitions. Many more are likely to follow—this is their established strategy.

“We’ve identified over 1,000 digital firms (both public and private) as potential acquisition targets in the future, representing nearly $400 billion in total estimated revenue by 2025,” Ferrari mentioned in a letter on behalf of the Bending Spoons team.

Although the strategy remains the same, the company has evolved from making $10,000 acquisitions to seeking deals valued in the billions.

Looking ahead may bring even more intensity. “As AI enables us to achieve greater efficiency with fewer personnel, the scalability of our acquisition and transformation model should improve as well,” Ferrari predicted.

This article was originally published in October 2025 and is periodically updated with new information.