What is Bending Spoons? Everything to know about AOL’s acquirer

What is Bending Spoons? Everything to know about AOL’s acquirer

Bending Spoons’ 4 cofounders this week joined the billionaire ranks.

CEO Luca Ferrari’s stake in the Milan-based tech conglomerate is now reportedly value $1.4 billion, while cofounders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello each maintain stakes value $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates based on shareholder data revealed by the Italian Business Register.

The valuations come on the heels of Bending Spoons’ latest funding round: $270 million from traders including T. Rowe Price and earlier backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, and Fidelity, plus a $440 million secondary share sale by current shareholders. It’s unclear whether or not any of the cofounders offered inventory in the secondary transaction. Bending Spoons has declined to touch upon its cofounders’ stakes.

Despite its catchy title, Bending Spoons has stayed remarkably under the radar. The 12-year-old outfit sometimes makes headlines only when it provides another recognizable model to its rising portfolio — most just lately this past week, when it agreed to purchase AOL. for an undisclosed quantity.

But Bending Spoons isn’t a standard personal fairness agency or a pure monetary funding automobile. Its focus is on buying underperforming however standard tech manufacturers, then remodeling them to serve tens of millions of customers more effectively. 

The company tends to make news when it restructures these acquired corporations, often by important layoffs, or makes controversial adjustments to beloved merchandise — or each in the case of Evernote and WeTransfer.

Still, Bending Spoons itself stays largely unknown, even though its roster of merchandise has served more than a billion people, with over 300 million month-to-month energetic customers and 10 million paying prospects. Here’s what you want to know about the company reshaping some of the web’s most recognizable manufacturers.

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What is Bending Spoons?

Bending Spoons describes itself as a company that acquires and transforms digital companies. Having grown to a headcount of 400 to 500 “Spooners,” its main focus is on making enhancements to services and products that others have created.

However, it didn’t start that approach — the Bending Spoons’ founders had taken a stab at constructing their very own apps and merchandise before finally 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 picture sharing app, Wink. 

Evertale failed not lengthy after, and traders obtained an out, however its founders and a few staff saved working together, initially on in-house apps. Soon sufficient, the team made its first acquisition, adopted by many others, CEO and cofounder Luca Ferrari told the 20VC podcast in a uncommon interview. 

In 2020, Bending Spoons made an exception when it created and donated Immuni, Italy’s official COVID-19 contact tracing app. But other than that, it has principally been honing a components: Bending Spoons identifies a preferred product it thinks it may possibly enhance inside and out, and buys it from homeowners who’ve reached their limits.

After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is something however a passive proprietor, making adjustments to the merchandise’ person experience and options however also to the underlying tech; monetization strategy, including pricing; and team group, including headcount.

While this give attention to effectivity and income overlaps with personal fairness methods, Bending Spoons claims a key distinction: it “aims to hold forever, and has never sold an acquired business.” It is constructing a live portfolio, not gathering web relics or presiding over a tech graveyard.

To be clear, Bending Spoons’ acquisition targets up to now haven’t essentially been failing companies — many still had substantial person bases and income. But they’ve tended to be stagnant, uncared for, or had homeowners wanting to exit. Let’s recap these key offers, and also what occurred of their aftermath.

What corporations has Bending Spoons acquired?

While Bending Spoons acquired a number of corporations between 2014 and 2021, including AI picture enhancer Remini, its most notable acquisitions occurred more just lately.

In 2022, it acquired Filmic, recognized for its standard video and picture enhancing apps, and laid off the whole workers in December 2023.

In a deal also announced in 2022 and finalized in early 2023, Bending Spoons also cquired Evernote, the note-taking app that had reportedly reached a $1 billion valuation before hitting bother. Layoffs adopted the acquisition, in addition to cuts to Evernote’s free providing.

The first half of following 12 months, 2024, was notably energetic, with the acquisition of Meetup, app maker Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard in the first half of the 12 months. 

In July 2024, it went on to purchase the publishing platform Issuu and the file switch service WeTransfer, the place it later reduce workers and made adjustments to its free plan, introducing stricter limits. Later in the 12 months, Bending Spoons announced it will spend $233 million on an all-cash take-private deal to purchase video platform Brightcove. 

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

Bending Spoons also announced its intention to purchase Vimeo in a $1.38 billion all-cash deal, and even more just lately, to purchase AOL from Yahoo. (Disclosure: each AOL and Yahoo are former homeowners of TechCrunch, wherein Yahoo retains a small curiosity.) 

According to Bending Spoons, the acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo are anticipated to shut by the end of the 12 months, topic to customary closing situations and regulatory approvals, including, in the case of Vimeo, approval by its stockholders. 

How a lot is Bending Spoons value?

As of the end of October 2025, Bending Spoons is one in all Europe’s uncommon tech decacorns (corporations valued at more than $10 billion). The startup last raised at a $2.8 billion valuation in 2024, making its latest latest round a major step up.

Though lengthy bootstrapped, Bending Spoons had beforehand raised fairness financing a number of occasions, including in September 2022 and early 2024. It also has VIPs on its cap desk, including 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.

According to Bending Spoons, its new funding will assist future acquisitions and funding in its proprietary technology and AI capabilities. This comes as well as to the $2.8 billion in debt financing the company disclosed because it announced its intention to purchase AOL, debt that will fund the AOL deal and future acquisitions.

What’s next?

Bending Spoons says it intends to continue pursuing new acquisitions that broaden its portfolio of client and enterprise digital merchandise, and it now has funding to afford more outstanding targets going ahead.

AOL and Vimeo already carry far more title recognition than earlier targets, even if deal phrases stay undisclosed. The properties also have some attain. In asserting the AOL deal, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL stays one in all the top 10 most-used electronic mail suppliers in the world, with 8 million daily energetic customers and 30 million month-to-month energetic customers. (Not lengthy before buying AOL, Bending Spoons was also rumored to be eyeing app maker Elysium and Typeform, the Barcelona-based SaaS company recognized for its kind creation instruments.)

Presumably to assist its continued efforts to purchase corporations, it also has openings across varied roles, with new hires initially working from its Milan headquarters before gaining the possibility to work from places of work in London, Madrid, and Warsaw, or remotely.

In fact, despite warning candidates that Bending Spoons is a “demanding environment,” the company has said it already obtained more than 600,000 job purposes in 2025, a determine that will probably climb as its current offers generate further consideration.

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