<\/p>\n
Most people have never heard of Bending Spoons. But plenty of them use its products every day. <\/p>\n
The company owns Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Eventbrite, AOL, and StreamYard, among more than 50 businesses acquired since 2013.<\/p>\n
Last week, Bending Spoons (BSP) went public and laid out an ambitious roadmap. <\/p>\n
It wants to keep acquiring digital companies at scale, including aging software and internet brands that once dominated their categories but have since lost momentum.<\/p>\n
Bending Spoons built its playbook from a failed startup<\/p>\n
Before Bending Spoons existed, its founders ran a company called Evertale, an AI-powered diary app. It raised a million dollars, hired a small team, and still failed to find customers. <\/p>\n
By 2013, the founders were down to a few months of cash and no real revenue, according to a letter from the founders included in the company’s IPO prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n
That experience shaped everything that came after. CEO Luca Ferrari and his co-founders concluded that luck, not skill, often determines whether a young company finds product-market fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We\u2019d observed phenomenal entrepreneurs fail in their ventures and less remarkable ones succeed,” Ferrari explained in the shareholder letter. “Even accepting that our own judgment was flawed in some cases, it was apparent that luck mattered a great deal at the early stages of a business.”<\/p>\n
Related: OpenAI\u2019s $1 trillion ambition could delay its IPO<\/p>\n
Operating an existing business well, on the other hand, comes down to talent and discipline, things a team can actually control.<\/p>\n
So instead of building new products from scratch, Bending Spoons started buying businesses that already had customers, then rebuilding them from the inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company calls this its Playbook: acquire, transform, reinvest, repeat. <\/p>\n
It has applied this approach, with internal rate of return targets of 65% on a levered basis and 25% unlevered, to deals closed between 2023 and the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
Bending Spoons’ revenue, profit scaled quicklyBending Spoons reported revenue of $1.31 billion in 2025, up from $671 million in 2024 and $387 million in 2023, a compound annual growth rate of 84%.Operating income stood at $278 million in 2025, while adjusted operating income, which excludes certain noncash and one-time costs, was $613 million, representing a 47% margin.\u00a0In the first quarter of 2026, it reported revenue of $601 million, more than double the $259 million reported in the same period a year earlier.Net income has been choppier. The company posted a small net loss in 2025 after an $88.9 million profit in 2024, largely reflecting swings in tax expense and interest costs tied to acquisition debt.\u00a0Adjusted net income, however, climbed steadily to $375.6 million in 2025 and $206 million in the first quarter of 2026.The balance sheet shows the scale of the buildout. Total assets stood at nearly $7 billion as of March 31, 2026, against total liabilities of $5.9 billion, much of it acquisition-related debt.
\nSource: Bending Spoons IPO prospectus<\/p>\n
Bending Spoons applies a private equity playbook to software.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
A focus on key acquisitions<\/p>\n
Bending Spoons says it has already scouted its next wave of targets. <\/p>\n
Using data from PitchBook along with its own research, the company narrowed a list of tens of thousands of private and public businesses to more than 1,000 candidates that generate between $50 million and $5 billion in annual revenue each.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More Wall Street:Wall Street has a new problem, and it\u2019s not the technologyWall Street\u2019s biggest banks just landed the AI IPO of the yearWall Street\u2019s top analysts just doubled down on 3 stocks<\/p>\n
Roughly 791 of those targets are based in North America and 240 in Europe, together representing close to $400 billion in combined 2025 revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many are established self-serve subscription or advertising businesses, the kind of aging but stable software brands that fit the pattern of past deals like AOL, Vimeo, and Eventbrite.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in that hunt. <\/p>\n
Bending Spoons said the share of its engineering pull requests authored or coauthored by AI jumped from under 10% in early 2025 to more than 90% by the first quarter of 2026, with around 70% written by AI alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Revenue per employee climbed from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025 as a result, the company said.<\/p>\n
Bending Spoons raised over $1 billion via its IPO, at a share price of $29. At the time of writing, the stock trades at $36.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The funds raised through the IPO will be deployed towards general corporate purposes and future acquisitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a company that started with $40,000 in seed money in 2013, the shift to billion-dollar acquisition math marks a significant next chapter, one investors will be watching closely over the next decade, and beyond.<\/p>\n
Related: Wall Street’s $200 billion IPO wave threatens sell-off<\/p>\n
#Bending #Spoons #targets #software #giants #huge #capital #deployment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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