How Bending Spoons Hit an $11 Billion Valuation in Just 48 Hours

Bending Spoons has completed one of the most dramatic 48-hour periods in recent European tech history after announcing an agreement to acquire AOL and revealing a $270 million funding round that has pushed its valuation from $2.55 billion to $11 billion.

What is ‘Bending Spoons’?

Bending Spoons is a Milan based technology company that has built its business by acquiring well known but often stagnating digital brands and turning them into profitable, streamlined operations. Founded in 2013, the company initially developed its own mobile apps before switching its focus to buying established products with large user bases and restructuring them in pursuit of long term profitability.

Its portfolio already includes Evernote, Meetup, WeTransfer, Harvest, Komoot, Brightcove, Mosaic Group and StreamYard. It has also agreed deals for Vimeo and now AOL, with both transactions expected to complete by the end of 2025 subject to regulatory approvals. Bending Spoons now has more than 300 million monthly active users across its products, supported by a growing workforce in Milan, London, Madrid and Warsaw.

Hold Forever – Not Just Cut Costs and Sell On

The company’s approach has attracted attention because it combines elements of private equity restructuring with a long term, “hold forever” strategy. For example, rather than buying companies, cutting costs and selling them on, Bending Spoons actually says it aims to own and operate each acquisition indefinitely. For founders seeking stability or for investors looking to offload ageing assets, that approach is becoming increasingly attractive.

Why Bending Spoons Wanted AOL

AOL, once one of the most recognisable names in the early internet era, has changed hands several times over the past two decades after being owned by Time Warner, Verizon and most recently Apollo backed Yahoo. Despite its reduced profile, AOL remains one of the world’s most used email services, with around 8 million daily and 30 million monthly active users.

It’s that user base that’s a key part of Bending Spoons’ rationale. In announcing the deal, chief executive Luca Ferrari described AOL as “an iconic, beloved business that has stood the test of time” and said the company sees “unexpressed potential” in the brand. The plan is to invest heavily in the core email service, modernise the underlying technology, improve product experience and explore new revenue opportunities.

Exact Amount Not Disclosed

Although exact financial terms have not been disclosed, multiple reports have placed the acquisition price at roughly $1.4 to $1.5 billion. Bending Spoons has secured a $2.8 billion debt financing package from a group of banks to fund the AOL deal, support further research and development and provide capacity for future acquisitions.

Scale and Visibility

It could be said that the AOL purchase really stands out due to its scale and visibility. For example, whereas earlier Bending Spoons acquisitions involved smaller, often niche brands, AOL’s name recognition and large audience give the company a new level of global prominence. That said, it also presents operational challenges, including the need to migrate legacy systems, protect long established user data and rebuild a product that has not seen major improvements for several years.

The Funding Round That Changed The Company’s Trajectory

Less than two days after confirming the AOL deal, Bending Spoons announced a new $270 million fundraising round led by major institutional investors including T Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity. A further $440 million changed hands in secondary transactions as existing shareholders sold stock.

Now A ‘Decacorn’

The raise marks one of the largest late stage private funding events in Europe this year and pushes Bending Spoons into the small group of European “decacorns”, companies valued at more than $10 billion. The company’s valuation has now risen from $2.55 billion in early 2024 to $11 billion in late 2025, a dramatic increase driven by its acquisition strategy and its ability to rapidly restructure and monetise digital properties.

Investors Confident in the Bending Spoons Operating Model

Investor appetite appears to reflect real confidence in the company’s operating model. It seems that, while many venture backed startups have struggled to raise funds in the current environment, Bending Spoons is positioning itself as a consolidator of mature tech assets rather than a speculative bet on early stage growth. The strategy offers predictable revenue, large user bases and the opportunity to centralise functions such as engineering, marketing and finance across dozens of brands.

How Bending Spoons Creates Growth (Where Others Can’t)

The company’s approach really involves three main elements, which are:

1. Buying underperforming brands.

2. Cutting costs and restructuring operations.

3. Increasing revenue through pricing changes or new paid features.

Its acquisition of Evernote illustrates the pattern. For example, after purchasing the note taking service in early 2023, Bending Spoons reduced headcount, restructured teams and introduced stricter limits on free accounts, ultimately pushing more users towards paid plans.

Similar changes followed at Filmic, Meetup and WeTransfer. In some cases, restructuring has been controversial, with criticism over layoffs and alterations to product features that long standing users had taken for granted. The company argues that without these changes, many of the businesses it acquires would continue to stagnate or decline.

The Benefits of Scale

For Bending Spoons, the benefit lies in scale. For example, by centralising common functions, it avoids duplicating costs across its portfolio and can invest selectively in the features and technologies it believes each brand needs. It also likes to increase the use of artificial intelligence to streamline workflows, improve content recommendations and modernise systems that are many years old.

What The AOL Deal Means For Customers

Millions of individuals and thousands of small businesses still rely on AOL email accounts. Many use the service because of its familiarity or because it is tied to old workflows, business cards or customer communications. Those users are likely to see product changes over time, particularly if Bending Spoons introduces new pricing tiers or imposes limits on free accounts as it has done elsewhere.

Bending Spoons insists that it will invest in improving AOL’s technology, user experience and reliability. For business users, that could mean better security, faster email delivery, improved spam filtering and more intuitive interfaces. The challenge will be ensuring that changes do not disrupt long standing processes for individuals and organisations with limited capacity to adapt.

The acquisition also raises questions around customer service, data migration and localisation. For example, previous restructurings at other brands have seen support teams reduced or reorganised. However, AOL’s scale may require a different approach, particularly given the sensitivity of email data and the wide demographic range of its user base.

Impact on Competitors and the Wider Market

The size of the AOL deal and the surge in Bending Spoons’ valuation will, no doubt, be closely watched by other firms in the “venture zombie” market. For example, companies such as Constellation Software, SaaS.group, Tiny and Curious also acquire mature software products, but few operate at Bending Spoons’ scale or rely so heavily on debt financing to accelerate expansion.

The AOL acquisition may signal that large, consumer facing internet brands are now becoming targets for permanent capital acquirers that traditionally focused on smaller SaaS companies. It could also encourage more venture backed companies to consider sales to operators that prioritise profitability over hypergrowth.

For traditional venture capital, however, this trend poses a bit of a challenge. For example, many older software startups with moderate revenue have struggled to find conventional exits, and the rise of permanent holders like Bending Spoons may reshape expectations around valuation, return timelines and portfolio strategy.

Challenges and Scrutiny Ahead

Despite its rising profile, Bending Spoons faces several risks. Integrating AOL’s ageing infrastructure with its modern technology stack will require significant investment and presents operational complexity. The company also carries a growing debt load, creating pressure to turn newly acquired assets into profitable units quickly.

Regulators may also take a closer interest as Bending Spoons gains control of a wider set of online services used by millions of consumers and businesses. Although the company insists it plans to invest for the long term, the combination of aggressive restructuring, centralised ownership and cost reduction has attracted criticism from former employees and some existing users of the brands it has acquired.

For now, the company has signalled that it will continue its acquisition driven expansion, supported by fresh investment and one of the largest debt packages raised by any private European tech firm this year. Whether this model can scale across a portfolio that increasingly includes household names is a question that will be closely followed by customers, competitors and the broader tech industry in the months ahead.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The events of the past two days leave Bending Spoons operating from a position of unusual strength, although every part of that strength will now be tested. The company has shown that it can convince major investors to back a long term acquisition model at a moment when most late stage funding is slowing. The AOL deal demonstrates that it is no longer targeting only niche or neglected software brands but is now prepared to absorb some of the internet’s most recognisable properties. The funding round reinforces that change and gives it the financial capability to keep expanding while it works through the practical realities of integrating a very diverse set of products.

The implications are significant for customers, regulators and the wider market. For example, AOL’s millions of email users will want clarity on how the service will evolve, particularly once the familiar platform begins to adopt the pricing structures and technical overhaul seen across other Bending Spoons properties. Also, organisations that rely on AOL for communication or advertising will be looking for stability rather than disruption, and the company will need to show that its restructuring methods can be applied without undermining long standing business workflows. Regulators too will examine how the acquisition affects data protection, security and competition across email and online content, especially as a single owner becomes responsible for a portfolio that now touches well over 300 million people each month.

There are also some clear consequences for the investment landscape. For example, competitors in the “venture zombie” space now face a consolidator with access to capital on a scale they may struggle to match. Venture funds holding mature but slow growth software companies could revisit their exit expectations, particularly if valuations begin to adjust to reflect the prices being paid by permanent owners. For UK businesses, the story is a reminder that established digital tools used daily in operations, marketing or customer communication can change hands quickly and be reshaped in ways that require preparation. Companies relying on services such as Evernote, WeTransfer or now AOL may need to plan for price changes, feature adjustments and new account tiers, even as potential improvements in security and performance start to appear.

The central question here is whether Bending Spoons can really apply its efficiency focused model at the scale implied by its expanding portfolio. Success would strengthen its claim that many mature digital brands still hold substantial untapped value. However, any missteps would fuel criticism that aggressive restructuring and rapid integration place too much pressure on complex, widely used services. The next year will, therefore, offer a clearer view of whether the company’s hold forever strategy can deliver the long term gains it promises across brands as large and visible as AOL.