In an extraordinary turn of events, the four visionary cofounders of Bending Spoons have officially entered the global billionaire ranks this week, marking a significant milestone in the company’s rise from a relatively obscure European tech player to an international powerhouse. The firm’s CEO, Luca Ferrari, now possesses an equity stake in the Milan-headquartered technology conglomerate estimated to be worth around $1.4 billion. His cofounders — Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello — are not far behind, with each reportedly holding shares valued at approximately $1.3 billion. These figures, derived from Forbes’ meticulous analysis of shareholder information published by the Italian Business Register, underscore the company’s growing financial strength and its ability to command serious investor confidence.
The new valuations surfaced shortly after Bending Spoons completed an ambitious funding round that brought in a remarkable $270 million in fresh capital from a group of high-profile investors, among them T. Rowe Price and returning supporters such as Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, and Fidelity. This capital infusion was paired with a $440 million secondary sale involving existing shareholders, further enhancing liquidity and signaling enormous institutional faith in the company’s long-term trajectory. Whether any of the founders personally relinquished shares in the latter transaction remains undisclosed, as Bending Spoons has respectfully declined to comment on the details of their personal stakes.
Despite its whimsical name — inspired by the famous Matrix motif of perception and transformation — Bending Spoons has managed to operate with a level of discretion almost unheard of among tech firms of its scale. Over the past twelve years, the company has quietly built a diversified portfolio of technology assets, occasionally emerging into public view only when announcing the acquisition of yet another recognizable digital brand. The most recent example arrived when Bending Spoons agreed to acquire the storied internet pioneer AOL from Yahoo, a move that instantly captured the attention of both investors and digital historians alike.
Unlike a conventional private equity firm driven purely by financial arbitrage, Bending Spoons pursues a different and arguably more creative approach. Its business model revolves around acquiring well-known yet underperforming or plateaued consumer technology brands — digital services that still command vast user bases but have struggled to evolve. By integrating these products into its operational and technological ecosystem, the Italian company systematically refurbishes their infrastructure, enhances efficiency, and revitalizes public perception. Examples of this model in action include its bold restructuring of platforms like Evernote and WeTransfer, both of which experienced substantial workforce reductions and fundamental product modifications under Bending Spoons’ stewardship.
Still, for a firm whose services have reached more than one billion people worldwide, including over 300 million active monthly users and ten million paying customers, Bending Spoons retains an air of mystery. Many users continue to interact daily with its software without realizing the same parent company powers several of the internet’s most ubiquitous tools. In essence, the company’s quiet influence extends into countless corners of the digital economy.
According to Bending Spoons’ own description, its primary purpose is to acquire and transform digital businesses rather than simply manage a portfolio of financial assets. Now employing between four and five hundred individuals — affectionately dubbed “Spooners” — the company centers its operations on improving and reengineering existing products that it believes can be optimized technically and commercially.
The company’s genesis was far humbler than its current valuation suggests. Bending Spoons traces its origins back to a startup named Evertale, a modest Copenhagen-based venture that gained brief visibility in the early 2010s, notably through its participation in TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011. Evertale’s product, a photo-sharing application called Wink, ultimately failed to sustain market traction, prompting an eventual wind-down. Still, a portion of its founding team and several employees continued to collaborate even after the company’s dissolution, shifting their focus toward internal product experimentation. One of these projects became the foundation of what is now Bending Spoons. Their perseverance would soon bear fruit through a sequence of early acquisitions, initiating a journey that transformed a small Scandinavian experiment into an Italian global tech conglomerate.
While largely dedicated to acquiring existing assets, Bending Spoons did make a single notable departure from its regular strategy in 2020: the proactive design and donation of Immuni, the Italian government’s official COVID-19 contact-tracing application. Apart from that altruistic initiative, the company has concentrated on perfecting its playbook — systematically identifying products that have lost momentum but retain considerable potential, purchasing them from fatigued owners, and injecting new life through reimagined design, architecture, and monetization strategies.
After assuming ownership, Bending Spoons seldom remains a passive observer. Rather, it becomes intimately involved in reinventing a product’s user experience, feature set, and technical foundation while also revisiting its business model and organizational footprint. These recalibrations frequently include pricing adjustments, overhauls of monetization plans, and reorganization of staff to enhance scalability and profitability. While this intense operational involvement mirrors classic private equity behavior in some ways, Bending Spoons differentiates itself philosophically — it asserts a long-term, almost custodial approach, claiming to have never sold any of its acquisitions. Its ambition is to sustain a live and evolving portfolio rather than curate digital relics.
The company’s acquisition history reads like a blueprint for a modern digital empire. Between 2014 and 2021, it quietly accumulated smaller assets such as the AI-powered photo enhancer Remini. Step by step, the firm expanded its domain. In 2022, it purchased Filmic, a creator favorite for professional-grade video and photo editing, before later executing a series of layoffs that effectively restructured the entire team. In parallel, it finalized the acquisition of Evernote — once a Silicon Valley unicorn with a $1 billion valuation — with subsequent reductions in staff and revisions of its free-tier offering. By early 2024, its acquisition spree accelerated dramatically as it incorporated Meetup, Mosaic Group, and Hopin’s StreamYard, quickly followed by purchases of Issuu and WeTransfer in midyear. The adjustments to WeTransfer’s model, including tighter restrictions on free-file limits, reflected the company’s typical efficiency-first philosophy. Later that same year, Bending Spoons made headlines again with an all-cash $233 million deal to take Brightcove private, continuing its aggressive expansion.
The tempo of acquisitions did not diminish in 2025, when the company moved to absorb the outdoor mapping platform Komoot and the project management software firm Harvest. It also unveiled plans for a $1.38 billion all-cash acquisition of Vimeo, adding to its growing collection of globally recognized platforms. The surprise announcement of its intent to purchase AOL from Yahoo only solidified Bending Spoons’ emerging status as a transatlantic technology consolidator. As of now, both the Vimeo and AOL transactions await customary closing procedures and required regulatory approvals, including a shareholder vote in Vimeo’s case.
As of late October 2025, Bending Spoons has attained a status reserved for only a handful of European startups — the coveted distinction of being a “decacorn,” a privately held company valued above $10 billion. Its 2024 valuation stood at $2.8 billion, making the subsequent funding round a monumental upward leap, reflecting investor enthusiasm and belief in its scaling potential. Historically, the firm had functioned primarily through internal funding, though it accepted occasional equity financing rounds, most notably in 2022 and early 2024. Its cap table reads like a who’s who of global celebrity investors, including tennis icons Andre Agassi and entertainment figure Bradley Cooper, as well as tech luminaries such as Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, and Xavier Niel. Even major musical artists — among them The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, and Maluma — have lent both their capital and cachet to the company’s mission.
The most recent funding round will underpin further acquisitions and foster advancements in proprietary technology and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Coupled with a declared $2.8 billion in debt financing secured for its AOL purchase and additional takeovers, these resources provide Bending Spoons with the financial firepower to sustain its rapid expansion pace.
Looking ahead, Bending Spoons has made clear its ambition to continue acquiring strategic digital assets spanning both consumer and enterprise markets. Recent targets such as AOL and Vimeo possess instantly recognizable names and substantial reach, signaling a pivot toward higher-profile acquisitions. The company notes that AOL remains among the world’s top ten email providers, serving roughly eight million daily and thirty million monthly active users — a testament to its enduring resilience. Industry observers speculate that the firm may next turn its attention to companies like Elysium and Typeform, though these remain unconfirmed rumors.
To support this ongoing phase of expansion, Bending Spoons is aggressively recruiting, with new hires initially based in Milan before potentially relocating to other European hubs such as London, Madrid, or Warsaw, or opting for remote arrangements. Despite candidly describing itself as an exacting workplace, the company reportedly received over 600,000 job applications in 2025, illustrating both its magnetic appeal to top global talent and the allure of joining one of Europe’s most dynamic technology organizations.
In sum, Bending Spoons has evolved from the remnants of a small Scandinavian startup into a formidable global enterprise redefining how digital acquisitions can function when paired with long-term stewardship and an engineering-first vision. Its latest conquests, AOL and Vimeo, are not merely new trophies but integral parts of a continually expanding ecosystem that aspires to breathe new life into some of the internet’s most iconic yet aging platforms.
Sourse: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/31/what-is-bending-spoons-everything-to-know-about-aols-acquirer/
