Twelve-year-old Milanese technology conglomerate Bending spoons has quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers, now owning Meetup, WeTransfer and more, but it remains largely unknown to the general public.
So, what exactly are Bending Spoons? Despite its catchy name, the company has remained remarkably low-key and usually only makes headlines when it adds another recognizable brand to its portfolio – the latest being Eventbrite, which it agreed to buy for $500 million last December.
But Bending Spoons is not a traditional private equity firm or a pure financial investment vehicle. Its goal is to acquire underperforming but popular tech brands and then transform them to serve millions of users more effectively.
The company tends to make news when it restructures acquired companies, often through major layoffsor done controversial changes to beloved products – as was the case with Evernote and WeTransfer.
Yet Bending Spoons remains largely unknown, even though its product line has served more than a billion people, with more than 300 million monthly active users and 10 million paying customers. Here’s what you need to know about the company that’s reshaping some of the internet’s most recognizable brands.
What are bending spoons?
Bending Spoons describes itself as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. Having grown to a staff of 400 to 500 employees (whom the company calls “Spooners”), its primary goal is to make improvements to products and services that others have created.
However, it didn’t start out that way: Bending Spoons’ founders had attempted to create their own apps and products before ultimately changing direction.
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The little-known story is that Bending Spoons was born from the remains of Evertale, a Copenhagen-based startup that participated in Disrupt SF’s Startup Alley 2011 and high startup financing for his photo sharing appWink.
Evertale went bankrupt soon after and investors were able to exit, but its founders and a few employees continued to work together, initially on internal applications. Soon, the team made its first acquisition, followed by many more, CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari told the Venture 20VC podcast. in a rare interview.
In 2020, Bending Spoons made an exception by creating and donating Immuni, the official Italian COVID-19 contact tracing app. But other than that, the company has mostly tweaked a formula: Bending Spoons identifies a popular product it thinks can be improved inside and out and buys it from homeowners who have reached their limits.
After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is anything but a passive owner, making changes to the user experience and features of the products, as well as the underlying technology; monetization strategy, including pricing; and the organization of the team, including staffing.
While this focus on efficiency and revenue overlaps with private equity strategies, Bending Spoons claims a key difference: It “aims to hold forever and has never sold an acquired business.” This is about building a live portfolio, not collecting internet relics or presiding over a tech graveyard.
To be clear, Bending Spoons’ acquisition goals so far haven’t necessarily failed the companies: many still had significant user bases and revenue. But they tend to stagnate, be neglected or see their owners seek to withdraw. Let’s recap these key deals and what happened next.
Which companies has Bending Spoons acquired?
While Bending Spoons acquired several companies between 2014 and 2021, including AI-powered photo enhancer Remini, its most notable acquisitions have occurred more recently.
In 2022, it acquired Filmic, known for its popular video and photo editing apps, and dismissed all staff in December 2023.
In a deal also announced in 2022 and finalized in early 2023, Bending Spoons also acquired Evernote, the note-taking app that reportedly reached a billion-dollar valuation before running into trouble. Layoffs monitoring the acquisitionas well as cuts in Evernote free tier.
The first half of the following year, 2024, was particularly active, with the takeover of Meetupapp creator Mosaic GroupAnd Hopin StreamYard everything happens in six months.
In July 2024, it acquires the publishing platform Issue and file transfer service UsTransferwhere later reduce staff And made changes to its free planintroducing stricter limits. In December 2025, WeTransfer co-founder Nalden criticized Bending Spoons’ decisions and said he create another file transfer service.
In November 2024, Bending Spoons announced that it would spend $233 million in an all-cash going private deal to acquire video platform Brightcove.
Acquisitions continued at a steady pace in 2025, with acquisitions that include the Komoot route planner and management software publisher Harvest.
Bending Spoons also announced plans to acquire Vimeo in a $1.38 billion all-cash transaction, and shortly thereafter, for acquire AOL from Yahoo for an undisclosed amount. (Disclosure: AOL and Yahoo are both former owners of TechCrunch, in which Yahoo retains a small stake.)
At the time, Bending Spoons said the AOL and Vimeo acquisitions were expected to be completed by the end of 2025, subject to standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals; including, in Vimeo’s case, the approval of its shareholders, which they recently granted.
Layoffs also followed completion of the acquisition of Vimeo. The information was confirmed to Business Insider’s Bending Spoons, who declined to say how many people would lose their jobs.
In December 2025, Bending Spoons announced the acquisition of another well-known brand: Eventbrite. Once again, it may bring in far less than Eventbrite was once worth – only some $500 million, a far cry from the company’s revenue. $1.76 billion valuation during its IPO in 2018.
However, there could be other obstacles. Earlier this month, Eventbrite shareholders filed suit in Delaware to shake up the privatization deal over voting rights, and Eventbrite is currently fight against an effort to accelerate this challenge.
How much are folding spoons worth?
Since October 2025, Bending Spoons has been one of the rare technological giants in Europe (companies valued at more than $10 billion).
This follows Bending Spoons’ latest funding round: $270 million from investors including T. Rowe Price and previous backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity, plus a $440 million secondary share sale by existing shareholders.
The company last raised a valuation of $2.8 billion in 2024, making its updated valuation of $11 billion a significant step forward – also for its four co-founders, who have thus joined the ranks of billionaires.
Ferrari’s stake in Bending Spoons now reportedly stands at $1.4 billion, while co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella and Francesco Patarnello each hold a stake worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates based on shareholder data published by the Italian Company Registrar.
It is unclear whether any of the co-founders sold shares in the secondary transaction. Bending Spoons declined to comment on its co-founders’ issues.
Although long started, Bending Spoons had already raised equity funding several timesincluding in September 2022 And early 2024. He also has VIPs at his cap table, including tennis and entertainment stars Andre Agassi and Bradley Cooper; tech industry greats Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger and Xavier Niel; and artists The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers and Maluma.
When announcing its new funding in October 2025, Bending Spoons said it would support future acquisitions and investments in its proprietary technology and AI capabilities. This is in addition to the $2.8 billion in debt financing the company announced when it announced its intention to acquire AOL, debt that will fund the AOL deal and future acquisitions.
What’s next?
Bending Spoons said it intends to pursue new acquisitions that expand its portfolio of consumer and enterprise digital products, and it now has the funding to enable larger targets in the future – as confirmed by its decision to acquire Eventbrite.
AOL and Vimeo already enjoy much greater awareness than their previous targets, although AOL’s terms are not disclosed. Properties also have some scope. In announcing the deal with AOL, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL remains one of the 10 most widely 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 rumor to be watching Elysium app builder And Character shapethe Barcelona-based SaaS company known for its form creation tools.)
Presumably to support its ongoing business acquisition efforts, the company is also offering vacancies in various roles, with new recruits initially working from its Milan headquarters before being given the option to work from offices in London, Madrid and Warsaw, or remotely.
In fact, despite warning applicants that Bending Spoons is a “demanding environment,” the company said it has already received more than 600,000 applications in 2025, a figure that will likely rise as its recent deals receive increased attention.
Aside from the contestants, Bending Spoons is also interview banks. The company is reportedly in talks with several financial entities to launch an IPO on the NYSE. In November, Ferrari had told Reuters that if it decided to go public, Bending Spoons would likely list in the United States, where technology companies tend to command higher valuations.
This story was originally published in October 2025 and is updated periodically with new information.
