The four co-founders of Bending Spoons this week joined the ranks of billionaires.
CEO Luca Ferrari’s stake in technology conglomerate based in Milan is now reportedly worth $1.4 billion, while co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella and Francesco Patarnello hold stakes worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes estimates based on shareholder data published by the Italian business registry.
The valuations come on the heels of Bending Spoons’ latest funding round: $270 million from investors including T. Rowe Price and past backers Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity, plus a $440 million secondary sale of shares from existing shareholders. It is unclear whether any of the co-founders sold shares in the secondary transaction. Bending Spoons declined to comment on its co-founders’ stakes.
Despite its catchy name, Bending Spoons has stayed remarkably under the radar. The 12-year-old outfit usually only makes headlines when it adds another recognizable brand to its growing portfolio — most recently last week, when it agreed to acquire AOL. for an unknown amount.
But Bending Spoons is not a traditional private equity firm or a pure financial investment vehicle. It focuses on acquiring underperforming but popular technology brands and then transforming them to serve millions of users more efficiently.
The company tends to make news when it restructures these acquired companies, often through major layoffs or making controversial changes to beloved products — or both in the case of Evernote and WeTransfer.
However, Bending Spoons itself remains largely unknown, even though its product catalog has served more than a billion people, with over 300 million monthly active users and 10 million paying customers. Here’s what you need to know about the company that’s reshaping some of the internet’s most recognizable brands.
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What are bending spoons?
Bending Spoons describes itself as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. Having grown in number of employees from 400 to 500 “Spooners”, its main focus is to make improvements to products and services that others have created.
However, it didn’t start out that way – the founders of Bending Spoons had taken a stab at creating their own apps and products before eventually changing their focus.
The little-known story is that Bending Spoons was born out of the remnants of Evertale, a Copenhagen-based startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011’s Startup Alley and raised funding for the photo-sharing app, Wink.
Evertale failed shortly after and investors pulled out, but its founders and some employees continued to work together, initially on internal applications. Soon, the team made its first acquisition, followed by several others, CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari told 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. But other than that, he’s mostly honed in on a formula: Bending Spoons identifies a popular product it believes it can improve inside and out, and buys it from owners who have reached their limits.
After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is anything but a passive owner, making changes to the user experience and product capabilities, but also to the underlying technology. monetization strategy, including pricing; and team organization, including headcount.
While this focus on efficiency and revenue overlaps with private equity strategies, Bending Spoons claims a key difference: “it aims to hold forever and has never sold an acquired business.” He’s building a living portfolio, not collecting Internet relics or presiding over a tech graveyard.
To be clear, Bending Spoons’ acquisition targets so far weren’t necessarily failing businesses — many still had significant user bases and revenue. But they tended to be stagnant, neglected or had owners who wanted them gone. Let’s recap those key deals, as well as what happened next.
What companies has Bending Spoons acquired?
While Bending Spoons acquired several companies between 2014 and 2021, including AI photo enhancer Remini, its most notable acquisitions have been more recent.
In 2022, it acquired Filmic, known for its popular video and photo editing apps, and laid off all staff in December 2023.
In a deal also announced in 2022 and completed in early 2023, Bending Spoons also acquired Evernote, the note-taking app that was reportedly valued at $1 billion before running into trouble. The acquisition was followed by layoffs, as well as cuts to Evernote’s free offering.
The first half of next year, 2024, was particularly active, with acquisition of Meetupapp creator Mosaic Teamand Hopin’s StreamYard in the first half of the year.
In July 2024, it acquired the publishing platform Issuu and file transfer service WeTransfer, where it later cut staff and made changes to its free plan, introducing tighter limits. Later in the year, Bending Spoons announced it would spend $233 million in a private deal to acquire video platform Brightcove.
Acquisitions continued apace in 2025, with acquisitions including the Komoot outdoor route planner and management software manufacturer Harvest.
Bending Spoons also announced its intention to acquire Vimeo in a $1.38 billion cash deal and even more recently, to acquire AOL from Yahoo. (Disclosure: both AOL and Yahoo are former owners of TechCrunch, in which Yahoo retains a small interest.)
According to Bending Spoons, the AOL and Vimeo acquisitions are expected to close by the end of the year, subject to formal closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including, in the case of Vimeo, approval by its shareholders.
How much is Bending Spoons worth?
As of late October 2025, Bending Spoons is one of Europe’s rare tech decorators (companies worth over $10 billion). The startup last raised a $2.8 billion valuation in 2024, making its latest round a significant step up.
Although Bending Spoons had previously raised equity funding despite being a long-time startup several timesincluding in September 2022 and early 2024. He also has VIPs at his table, including tennis and entertainment stars Andre Agassi and Bradley Cooper. Tech industry bigwigs Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger and Xavier Niel. and performers The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers and Maluma.
According to Bending Spoons, its new funding will support future acquisitions and investments in its proprietary technology and AI capabilities. That’s on top of the $2.8 billion in debt financing the company disclosed as it announced its intention to acquire AOL, debt that will fund the AOL deal and future acquisitions.
What’s next?
Bending Spoons says it plans to continue to pursue new acquisitions that expand its portfolio of consumer and enterprise digital products, and now has funding to pursue more targets in the future.
AOL and Vimeo already have much more name recognition than previous targets, even if the terms of the deal remain unknown. Real estate also has some scope. In announcing the AOL deal, Bending Spoons claimed that AOL remains one of the 10 most used email providers in the world, with 8 million daily active users and 30 million monthly active users. (Shortly before AOL was acquired, Bending Spoons was, too it is rumored to look Elysium app maker and Typeform, the Barcelona-based SaaS company known for its form-building tools.)
Ostensibly to support its ongoing acquisition efforts, it also has openings in a variety of roles, with new hires initially working from its headquarters in Milan before gaining the option to work from offices in London, Madrid and Warsaw or remotely.
In fact, despite warning applicants that Bending Spoons is a “demanding environment,” the company said it has already received more than 600,000 job applications in 2025, a number that will likely rise as its recent deals garner additional attention.
