What is Bending Spoons? All the pieces to learn 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, whereas cofounders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello every maintain stakes value $1.3 billion, in accordance to Forbes estimates primarily based on shareholder information printed by the Italian Enterprise Register.

The valuations come 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. It’s unclear whether or not any of the cofounders offered inventory in the secondary transaction. Bending Spoons has declined to remark on its cofounders’ stakes.

Regardless of its catchy identify, Bending Spoons has stayed remarkably beneath the radar. The 12-year-old outfit sometimes makes headlines solely when it provides one other recognizable model to its rising portfolio — most just lately this previous week, when it agreed to acquire AOL. for an undisclosed quantity.

However Bending Spoons isn’t a conventional personal fairness agency or a pure monetary funding car. Its focus is on buying underperforming however widespread tech manufacturers, then remodeling them to serve thousands and thousands 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 — or each in the case of Evernote and WeTransfer.

Nonetheless, Bending Spoons itself stays largely unknown, despite the fact that its roster of merchandise has served greater than a billion folks, with over 300 million month-to-month lively customers and 10 million paying prospects. Right here’s what you want to learn about the firm reshaping a few of the web’s most recognizable manufacturers.

What is Bending Spoons?

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

Nevertheless, it didn’t begin that manner — 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 photo sharing app, Wink. 

Evertale failed not lengthy after, and buyers received an out, however its founders and a few workers stored working collectively, initially on in-house apps. Quickly sufficient, the crew made its first acquisition, adopted by many others, CEO and cofounder Luca Ferrari informed the 20VC podcast 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 apart from that, it has principally been honing a system: Bending Spoons identifies a well-liked product it thinks it will probably enhance in and out, and buys it from homeowners who’ve reached their limits.

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

Whereas this focus on effectivity and income overlaps with personal fairness methods, Bending Spoons claims a key distinction: it “goals to maintain perpetually, and has by no means offered an acquired enterprise.” It is constructing a reside portfolio, not gathering web relics or presiding over a tech graveyard.

To be clear, Bending Spoons’ acquisition targets to date 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 homeowners wanting 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 AI picture enhancer Remini, its most notable acquisitions occurred extra just lately.

In 2022, it acquired Filmic, recognized for its widespread video and picture modifying 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 cquired Evernote, the note-taking app that had reportedly reached a $1 billion valuation before hitting hassle. Layoffs followed the acquisition, in addition to cuts to Evernote’s free offering.

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

In July 2024, it went on to purchase 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 in the yr, Bending Spoons introduced 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 outdoors 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 much more just lately, to purchase AOL from Yahoo. (Disclosure: each AOL and Yahoo are former homeowners of TechCrunch, through which Yahoo retains a small curiosity.) 

In accordance to Bending Spoons, the acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo are anticipated to shut by the finish of the yr, topic to normal closing circumstances and regulatory approvals, together with, in the case of Vimeo, approval by its stockholders. 

How a lot is Bending Spoons value?

As of the finish of October 2025, Bending Spoons is certainly one of Europe’s uncommon tech decacorns (firms valued at greater than $10 billion). The startup final raised at a $2.8 billion valuation in 2024, making its latest newest spherical a major step up.

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.

In accordance to Bending Spoons, its new funding will help future acquisitions and funding in its proprietary expertise and AI capabilities. This comes as well as to the $2.8 billion in debt financing the firm disclosed because it introduced its intention to purchase AOL, debt that may fund the AOL deal and future acquisitions.

What’s subsequent?

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

AOL and Vimeo already carry much more identify recognition than earlier targets, even when deal phrases stay undisclosed. The properties even have some attain. In asserting the AOL deal, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL stays certainly one of the prime 10 most-used e-mail suppliers in the world, with 8 million day by day lively customers and 30 million month-to-month lively customers. (Not lengthy before 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 purchase firms, it additionally has openings throughout varied roles, with new hires initially working from its Milan headquarters before gaining the possibility to work from workplaces in London, Madrid, and Warsaw, or remotely.

In truth, regardless of warning candidates that Bending Spoons is a “demanding setting,” the firm has stated it already acquired greater than 600,000 job purposes in 2025, a determine that may doubtless climb as its latest offers generate further consideration.