Bending Spoons Files for $20B Nasdaq IPO After Acquiring 50-Plus Digital Products

Bending Spoons, the Milan‑based tech company that has quietly acquired more than 50 digital products — including AOL, Vimeo, Evernote, WeTransfer, Meetup, and Eventbrite — filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq on Monday, targeting a valuation of at least $20 billion, according to Reuters. The company, named after the mind‑bending spoon scene in The Matrix, has built one of the most unusual tech empires of the last decade: it buys struggling digital brands, cuts staff, optimizes operations, and turns them profitable.

"We see a vast opportunity ahead. We've identified more than 1,000 digital businesses — both private and public — that could be attractive acquisition targets in the future," CEO Luca Ferrari wrote in a letter attached to the IPO prospectus, as reported by Reuters.

Bending Spoons reported net income of $27.5 million on revenue of $601 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to a net loss of $112.2 million on revenue of $259 million a year earlier, according to Reuters. Full‑year 2025 revenue reached $1.31 billion, up from $387 million in 2023 — representing 238% growth over two years.

Its products collectively serve more than 500 million monthly active users and 9 million monthly paying subscribers, giving Bending Spoons a substantial recurring revenue base. The company was last valued at $11 billion in an October 2025 funding round, meaning the $20 billion IPO target represents a near‑doubling of its valuation in eight months.

Bending Spoons' strategy is consistent across every acquisition it makes. As The Verge put it: Bending Spoons' playbook is "buy, do layoffs, ????" — the question marks representing the aggressive post‑acquisition restructuring that typically follows. After acquiring Evernote in 2022, the company laid off most of its U.S. and Chile staff. After buying WeTransfer, it cut most of the workforce. After acquiring Vimeo in a $1.38 billion deal, it promised what the Vimeo blog called "the same ambitious plans."

The model works because Bending Spoons targets digital products with large existing user bases that are under‑monetized or operationally inefficient. By centralizing engineering, marketing, and subscription management across its portfolio, it extracts margins that standalone companies couldn't achieve. The approach has drawn both admiration for its efficiency and criticism for its impact on the products' original teams and cultures.

The Nasdaq listing represents another European tech company choosing U.S. markets over European exchanges — a trend that has frustrated European policymakers. EU‑Startups noted the filing by asking bluntly, "Is Europe losing another tech contender?"

Bending Spoons joins a wave of companies choosing U.S. listings where tech names command higher valuations. The company is part of a busy summer IPO window that also includes SpaceX's impending blockbuster debut and AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI filing to go public. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Allen & Co are joint lead bookrunning managers for the offering, with a target launch by end of June, according to Reuters.

Ferrari's statement that the company has identified more than 1,000 potential acquisition targets signals that the IPO is primarily a capital‑raising exercise to fuel more deals, not an exit. Bending Spoons and some existing stockholders plan to sell shares in the offering, but the bulk of proceeds appear earmarked for expanding the acquisition machine.

Investors backing the company include Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, Fidelity, Endeavor Catalyst, and actor Ryan Reynolds, according to EU‑Startups. The company was founded in 2013 by Ferrari and a small team of Italian engineers, growing from a mobile app developer into a digital conglomerate that now employs thousands.

Bending Spoons represents a different model of building in tech — one that doesn't involve founding a startup, raising venture capital, or developing a product from scratch. The implications for builders:

• The acquisition economy is real: If you build a digital product with strong user engagement but struggle with monetization, Bending Spoons' model means there's a corporate buyer that specializes in exactly your situation. The 1,000‑target pipeline signals sustained demand for acquisition candidates.
• Operational efficiency beats product innovation: Bending Spoons doesn't invent new categories. It optimizes existing ones. For builders, this means the bar for competing with large platforms isn't just about building something better — it's about running it more efficiently than a company that turns $601M in quarterly revenue with 500M users.
• The European tech talent drain: Each European company that lists on the Nasdaq instead of a European exchange reinforces the gap in public market valuations between the U.S. and Europe. For European builders, this means U.S. investors and acquirers will continue to have deeper pockets.
• The Matrix strategy is replicable: Bending Spoons proved that the buy, cut, optimize model works at scale. Expect more companies — and potentially private equity firms — to adopt similar playbooks, increasing competition for acquisition targets with loyal user bases.

Bending Spoons' filing is part of what Renaissance Capital senior strategist Matt Kennedy described to ¹ as an "active summer" for IPOs. "The pipeline has been building for years, waiting for these conditions," Kennedy.¹ Issuers, bankers, and investors will 'dance while the music is playing' knowing that the window can slam shut suddenly."

With SpaceX trading this week, Anthropic and OpenAI both filing for IPOs, and now Bending Spoons joining the queue, June 2026 is shaping up to be the busiest month for tech public offerings in years. For builders watching from the sidelines, the message is clear: the companies shaping the digital economy are racing to the public markets — and bringing their acquisition checkbooks with them.