Bending Spoons: The Company Behind the AOL Acquisition

Bending Spoons has rapidly become one of Europe’s most formidable tech companies, recently catapulting its four cofounders into the billionaire club following a massive funding round and secondary share sale. CEO Luca Ferrari’s stake in the Milan-based conglomerate is valued at approximately $1.4 billion, while his partners Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello each hold shares worth around $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates. These valuations emerged after the company secured $270 million in fresh capital from investors like T. Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, and Fidelity, alongside a $440 million secondary transaction by existing shareholders. Whether any founders participated in the secondary sale remains unclear, as Bending Spoons has chosen not to comment on individual stakes.

Despite its memorable name, Bending Spoons has largely operated out of the spotlight. The twelve-year-old firm typically draws attention only when it absorbs another well-known brand into its expanding collection, most recently with its agreement to purchase AOL for an undisclosed sum. However, this isn’t a standard private equity operation or a financial investment vehicle. The company specializes in acquiring widely recognized but underperforming tech brands, then overhauling them to serve millions of users more effectively.

Bending Spoons often makes headlines during restructuring, which can involve substantial workforce reductions or controversial updates to cherished products, as seen with Evernote and WeTransfer. Even so, the company itself remains relatively obscure, despite its portfolio of products reaching over a billion people, boasting more than 300 million monthly active users and 10 million paying subscribers. Here’s an inside look at the firm reshaping some of the internet’s most familiar names.

What exactly is Bending Spoons?

Bending Spoons defines itself as an organization that buys and revitalizes digital businesses. With a team of 400 to 500 employees, known internally as “Spooners,” its primary mission involves enhancing products and services originally developed by others. This wasn’t always the company’s approach, the founders initially tried building their own apps before changing direction.

Few realize that Bending Spoons emerged from the remnants of Evertale, a Copenhagen startup that showcased at Disrupt SF 2011’s Startup Alley and secured seed funding for its photo-sharing app Wink. After Evertale’s collapse, the founders and a handful of employees continued collaborating, first on internal applications. According to CEO Luca Ferrari in a rare podcast interview, the team soon executed its first acquisition, setting the stage for many more.

In 2020, the company broke from its usual model by developing and donating Immuni, Italy’s official COVID-19 contact tracing application. Otherwise, Bending Spoons has refined a consistent method: it spots popular products with untapped potential, purchasing them from owners who have hit a growth ceiling. Post-acquisition, the company actively revamps user experience, features, underlying technology, monetization approaches, including pricing, and internal team structure.

While this emphasis on efficiency and revenue shares similarities with private equity, Bending Spoons asserts a crucial distinction: it plans to hold acquisitions indefinitely and has never sold a business it purchased. The goal is to cultivate a living portfolio, not amass digital relics or manage a technology graveyard. It’s worth noting that acquisition targets aren’t necessarily failing; many still have large user bases and steady revenue, but have become stagnant, overlooked, or have owners seeking an exit.

Which companies has Bending Spoons purchased?

Between 2014 and 2021, Bending Spoons acquired several firms, including the AI photo enhancer Remini, but its most prominent deals occurred more recently. In 2022, it bought Filmic, famous for its video and photo editing apps, and let go of the entire staff in December 2023. That same year, Bending Spoons also finalized its purchase of Evernote, the note-taking application once valued at $1 billion, subsequently implementing layoffs and reducing its free service tier.

The first half of 2024 proved especially busy, with acquisitions of Meetup, app developer Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard. By July 2024, the company added the publishing platform Issuu and file-transfer service WeTransfer, where it later reduced staff and imposed stricter limits on free plans. Later in 2024, Bending Spoons disclosed a $233 million all-cash deal to take video platform Brightcove private.

Momentum continued into 2025 with purchases including outdoor route planner Komoot and management software producer Harvest. Bending Spoons also declared its plan to acquire Vimeo in a $1.38 billion all-cash transaction and, more recently, to buy AOL from Yahoo. The AOL and Vimeo acquisitions are anticipated to finalize by year-end, pending standard closing conditions and regulatory approvals, plus stockholder approval for Vimeo.

What is Bending Spoons’ current valuation?

As of late October 2025, Bending Spoons stands as one of Europe’s rare tech decacorns, valued at over $10 billion. The startup’s most recent funding round in 2024 placed its valuation at $2.8 billion, marking a substantial increase. Although initially bootstrapped, Bending Spoons has raised equity financing multiple times, including in September 2022 and early 2024. Its investor roster includes tennis legend Andre Agassi, actor Bradley Cooper, tech leaders Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Niel, as well as musicians The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, and Maluma.

According to the company, new funding will fuel additional acquisitions and investments in proprietary technology and AI capabilities. This is separate from the $2.8 billion in debt financing disclosed during the AOL acquisition announcement, which will finance that deal and future purchases.

What lies ahead for Bending Spoons?

The company plans to keep pursuing acquisitions that broaden its assortment of consumer and enterprise digital products, backed by ample funding for larger targets. AOL and Vimeo already carry greater name recognition than earlier acquisitions, even though deal terms haven’t been publicized. In announcing the AOL purchase, Bending Spoons highlighted that AOL remains a top-ten global email provider, with 8 million daily active users and 30 million monthly active users. Rumors also circulated that Bending Spoons considered buying app maker Elysium and Barcelona-based SaaS company Typeform, known for its form-building tools.

To support ongoing expansion, the company is hiring across multiple roles. New employees start at the Milan headquarters, with options later to work from offices in London, Madrid, or Warsaw, or remotely. Despite describing itself as a “demanding environment,” Bending Spoons reported receiving over 600,000 job applications in 2025 alone, a number likely to grow as recent deals attract more notice.

(Source: TechCrunch)