en.Wedoany.com Reported - Italian tech company Bending Spoons plans to raise $1.6 billion through an initial public offering, targeting a valuation of $19 billion. This U.S. listing is attracting investor attention amid a global frenzy sparked by SpaceX's IPO.
Bending Spoons operates a business model of acquiring existing SaaS businesses and restructuring their products. Since its founding in 2013, the company has acquired over 50 firms, including video platform Vimeo, file-sharing service WeTransfer, ticketing company Eventbrite, and internet brand AOL.
As investors worry that artificial intelligence will disrupt the software industry, stocks of traditional software companies have significantly depreciated, and many venture capital funds have shifted their investment focus to AI. This has reduced the options for startups and tech companies founded before the AI boom. In its IPO prospectus, Bending Spoons stated it has a list of over 1,000 potential acquisition targets.
"These companies are not zombies," said Joe Hyrkin, founder of digital publishing platform Issuu, who sold Issuu to Bending Spoons in 2024, in an interview with The New York Times. According to him, these companies simply no longer interest venture investors. Investment firm Creator Partners invested in Bending Spoons in 2022, and its founder Kerry Trainor believes that many well-known brands have deeper connections with the public than outsiders realize. He noted that some brands will be replaced by AI, but more have the ability to adapt. "The market tends to exaggerate the idea that everything will be replaced," he said.
Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari stated in 2024 that the company makes sweeping changes to acquired businesses to improve operations. "If someone wants everything to stay the same, we are not a good buyer," he said at the time. Bending Spoons was co-founded by Ferrari and several engineer friends, initially developing an unsuccessful digital diary app called Evertale. The team then used remaining funds and engineering skills to improve digital products with existing user bases, acquiring a virtual keyboard app for $10,000 and using the resulting profits to fund new acquisitions. The company name "Bending Spoons" is derived from a concept popularized by a scene in the film The Matrix, where a spoon is bent with the mind.
Over time, acquisitions grew in scale, and the company began raising funds from investors and taking on debt to expand its portfolio. In 2022, Bending Spoons acquired the app Evernote, founded in 2004 and one of the first companies to gain prominence due to the proliferation of smartphones. However, after the company's growth slowed and it experienced several failed rebounds, the acquisition drew attention from the tech industry. Last October, the company acquired the portal AOL. Although the specific amount was not disclosed, the market estimated the acquisition price at $1.5 billion, a deal reached with private equity giant Apollo. To fund the transaction, the company announced $2.8 billion in financing. The portal, which was the first internet destination for millions of Americans during the first boom of the internet bubble, still has over 30 million monthly users.
Guilherme Lima of Astella wrote in his newsletter Dealflowbr that from a venture capital perspective, Bending Spoons' IPO could be one of the most interesting cases in recent times. "You can't control timing, market preferences, or cultural moments. But running a digital business well requires skill, and skill becomes process," he wrote. "So instead of betting on finding the next product-market fit (PMF), they buy products that already work in some way and make them run better and at scale," he added. Last year, Bending Spoons generated $1.3 billion in revenue; in the first quarter of 2026 alone, the company recorded $601 million.
