Milan-based tech conglomerate Bending Spoons this week acquired Eventbrite for $500 million, including the occasion ticketing platform to its rising portfolio of recognizable shopper tech manufacturers.

The deal, introduced Tuesday, marks the newest acquisition for the 12-year-old firm that has quietly change into one of many tech trade’s most prolific patrons — regardless of remaining largely unknown to most people.

So what precisely is Bending Spoons? Regardless of its catchy title, the corporate has stayed remarkably underneath the radar, and it usually makes headlines solely when it provides one other recognizable model to its portfolio — which now consists of Evernote, WeTransfer, Meetup, and Streamyard, amongst others.

However Bending Spoons isn’t a conventional personal fairness agency or a pure monetary funding car. Its focus is on buying underperforming however standard tech manufacturers, then reworking them to serve tens of millions of customers extra effectively. 

The corporate tends to make information when it restructures these acquired firms, usually by way of significant layoffs, or makes controversial changes to beloved merchandise — because it did with each Evernote and WeTransfer.

Nonetheless, Bending Spoons itself stays largely unknown, though its roster of merchandise has served greater than a billion individuals, with over 300 million month-to-month energetic customers and 10 million paying prospects. Right here’s what you could know concerning the firm reshaping a number of the web’s most recognizable manufacturers.

What’s Bending Spoons?

Bending Spoons describes itself as an organization that acquires and transforms digital companies. Having grown to a headcount of 400 to 500 staff (whom the corporate calls “Spooners”), its important focus is on improving services and products that others have created.

Nevertheless, it didn’t begin that method — Bending Spoons’ founders had taken a stab at constructing their very own apps and merchandise earlier than ultimately shifting their focus.

The little-known backstory is that Bending Spoons was born out of the stays of Evertale, a Copenhagen-based startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011’s Startup Alley and raised seed funding for its photo-sharing app, Wink. 

Evertale failed not lengthy after, and buyers had been capable of exit, however its founders and a few staff stored working collectively, initially on in-house apps. Quickly sufficient, the workforce made its first acquisition, adopted by many others, CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari informed the enterprise podcast 20VC in a rare interview. 

In 2020, Bending Spoons made an exception when it created and donated Immuni, Italy’s official COVID-19 contact tracing app. However aside from that, it has principally been honing a method: Bending Spoons identifies a well-liked product it thinks it may possibly enhance in and out, and buys it from house owners who’ve reached their limits.

After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is something however a passive proprietor, making adjustments to the merchandise’ consumer expertise and options but in addition to the underlying tech; monetization technique, together with pricing; and workforce group, together with headcount.

Whereas this concentrate on effectivity and income overlaps with personal fairness methods, Bending Spoons claims a key distinction: it “goals to carry ceaselessly, and has by no means bought an acquired enterprise.” It’s constructing a stay portfolio, not accumulating web relics or presiding over a tech graveyard.

To be clear, Bending Spoons’ acquisition targets thus far haven’t essentially been failing companies — many nonetheless had substantial consumer bases and income. However they’ve tended to be stagnant, uncared for, or had house owners seeking to exit. Let’s recap these key offers, and likewise what occurred of their aftermath.

What firms has Bending Spoons acquired?

Whereas Bending Spoons acquired a number of firms between 2014 and 2021, together with the AI-powered photograph enhancer Remini, its most notable acquisitions occurred extra just lately.

In 2022, it acquired Filmic, recognized for its standard video- and photo-editing apps, and laid off the entire staff in December 2023.

In a deal additionally introduced in 2022 and finalized in early 2023, Bending Spoons additionally acquired Evernote, the note-taking app that had reportedly reached a $1 billion valuation earlier than hitting bother. Layoffs followed the acquisition, in addition to cuts to Evernote’s free offering.

The primary half of following 12 months, 2024, was significantly energetic, with the acquisition of Meetup, app maker Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard all taking place inside six months. 

In July 2024, it went on to amass the publishing platform Issuu and the file switch service WeTransfer, the place it later cut staff and made changes to its free plan, introducing stricter limits. Later within the 12 months, Bending Spoons introduced it could spend $233 million on an all-cash take-private deal to amass video platform Brightcove. 

The acquisitions have continued apace in 2025, with acquisitions that embody the route planner Komoot and administration software program maker Harvest. 

Bending Spoons additionally introduced its intention to acquire Vimeo in a $1.38 billion all-cash deal, and shortly after, to acquire AOL from Yahoo for an undisclosed quantity. (Disclosure: Each AOL and Yahoo are former house owners of TechCrunch, during which Yahoo retains a small curiosity.) 

Based on Bending Spoons, the acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo are anticipated to shut by the tip of the 12 months, topic to plain closing situations and regulatory approvals, together with, within the case of Vimeo, approval by its stockholders. 

Within the meantime, Bending Spoons acquired yet one more well-known model: Eventbrite. As soon as once more, it is going to pay a lot lower than Eventbrite was as soon as value — just some $500 million, a far cry from the corporate’s $1.76 billion valuation when it went public in 2018.

How a lot is Bending Spoons value?

Since October 2025, Bending Spoons has been considered one of Europe’s uncommon tech decacorns (firms valued at greater than $10 billion).

This comes on the heels of Bending Spoons’ newest funding spherical: $270 million from buyers together with T. Rowe Worth and earlier backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Sturdy Capital Companions, and Constancy, plus a $440 million secondary share sale by present shareholders.

The corporate final raised at a $2.8 billion valuation in 2024, making its up to date $11 billion valuation a big step up — additionally for its 4 co-founders, who joined the billionaire ranks consequently.

CEO Luca Ferrari’s stake in Bending Spoons is now reportedly value $1.4 billion, whereas co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello every maintain stakes value $1.3 billion, in keeping with Forbes estimates primarily based on shareholder knowledge printed by the Italian Enterprise Register.

It’s unclear whether or not any of the co-founders bought inventory within the secondary transaction. Bending Spoons has declined to touch upon its co-founders’ stakes.

Although lengthy bootstrapped, Bending Spoons had beforehand raised fairness financing several times, together with in September 2022 and early 2024. It additionally has VIPs on its cap desk, together with tennis and leisure stars Andre Agassi and Bradley Cooper; tech trade bigs Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Niel; and performers The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, and Maluma.

Upon saying its new funding in October 2025, Bending Spoons mentioned it could help future acquisitions and funding in its proprietary know-how and AI capabilities. This comes along with the $2.8 billion in debt financing the corporate disclosed when it introduced its intention to amass AOL, debt that may fund the AOL deal and future acquisitions.

What’s subsequent?

Bending Spoons mentioned it intends to proceed pursuing new acquisitions that increase its portfolio of shopper and enterprise digital merchandise, and it now has funding to afford extra distinguished targets going ahead — as confirmed by its choice to amass Eventbrite.

AOL and Vimeo already carry much more title recognition than earlier targets, although the AOL phrases stay undisclosed. The properties even have some attain. In saying the AOL deal, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL stays one of many high 10 most-used e-mail suppliers on the planet, with 8 million every day energetic customers and 30 million month-to-month energetic customers. (Not lengthy earlier than buying AOL, Bending Spoons was additionally rumored to be eyeing app maker Elysium and Typeform, the Barcelona-based SaaS firm recognized for its kind creation instruments.)

Presumably to help its continued efforts to amass firms, it additionally has openings throughout numerous roles, with new hires initially working from its Milan headquarters earlier than gaining the choice to work from workplaces in London, Madrid, and Warsaw, or remotely.

In truth, regardless of warning candidates that Bending Spoons is a “demanding surroundings,” the corporate has mentioned it already acquired greater than 600,000 job purposes in 2025, a determine that may possible climb as its latest offers generate extra consideration.