Bending Spoons to acquire AOL: Who is Bending Spoons, the company set to acquire AOL? Simply put, the Milan-based operator is one of Europe’s most valuable consumer software groups. Bending Spoons achieves this status by buying popular but not-yet-scaled digital brands and then rebuilding them. The buyer’s current portfolio has reached over a billion people, with 300 million monthly active users and roughly 10 million paying customers, which will make it an influential leader for one of the internet’s oldest names.
Bending Spoons defines itself as an “acquirer and transformer” of digital businesses. Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello first developed apps before pivoting into acquisitions when the remains of a previous venture transformed into today’s platform. The team focuses on operating its platform, with the only exception being Immuni, Italy’s official COVID-19 contact-tracing app, which Bending Spoons developed and donated to its home market. All other tasks involve rejuvenating products developed by other teams.
How Bending Spoons buys and rebuilds digital brands
Bending Spoons is targeting popular yet stagnant brands because it is best positioned to take action. It sets out to improve the product experience — often immeasurable before the acquisition — and the product-driven infrastructure, surrounding these with smarter pricing and monetization, and a reconfigured team. The result is more significant improvements in reliability, growth, and profitability, often delivered in months.
Unlike traditional private equity, Bending Spoons is a permanent owner. It has said it aims to “hold forever,” creating a live, integrated portfolio instead of flipping assets. The operator-first approach has also meant difficult calls: layoffs at acquired properties and alterations to free tiers have provoked controversy, particularly with Evernote and WeTransfer.
What it owns today and which deals are still pending
Bending Spoons’ catalog spans consumer and prosumer tools. High-profile purchases include:
- Evernote
- Remini, an AI photo editor within a creative suite
- A stock trading platform
- FiLMiC
- Meetup.com
- Streamingy
A comprehensive array of stock trading and editing tools, as well as a complementing collection of stock trading tools, is also available. It has also made known that the company has reached an agreement to purchase AOL for cash and plans to acquire Vimeo after receiving the required approvals.
Bending Spoons has secured more equity and capital to support its rapid advancement. Prior investors include:
- T. Rowe Price
- Baillie Gifford
- Cox Enterprises
- Durable Capital Partners
- Fidelity
They raised $270 million from earlier investors. Additionally, with $440 million in a completion sale by present investors, it collected $2.8 billion.
The company has become a decacorn, indicating investor faith in its acquisition engine and operating model. Its cap table reads like a who’s who of technology, entertainment, and sports, with Eric Schmidt, Mike Krieger, Xavier Niel, Andre Agassi, Bradley Cooper, The Weeknd, The Chainsmokers, and Maluma. Estimates of wealth confirm the scale: Forbes places CEO Luca Ferrari’s shares around $1.4 billion, with co-founders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello at about $1.3 billion each, based on shareholder data submitted to the Italian Business Register.
What AOL users can expect from Bending Spoons next
Past turnarounds offer a glimpse of what to expect from Bending Spoons. The company usually modernizes its backend systems to improve security and speed, redesigns its interfaces, and relaunches its pricing and free-plan parameters to reflect usage and sustainability.
- Stricter free account limits for heavy users
- More apparent upgrade targets for higher retention and ARPU
- For AOL: a focus on email reliability, spam and phishing security, more portable experiences, and migration and restoration tools for long-time account owners
Bending Spoons also maintains a culture of cross-pollination, combining or sharing technologies between its different products, which could mean integration with its creative, productivity, or video software.
Jobs, culture, and hiring at Bending Spoons worldwide
Bending Spoons’ onboarding is concentrated in Milan, but it has other offices in London, Madrid, and Warsaw, as well as remote roles. The company is fundamentally a challenging place to work, but it reportedly received over 600,000 job applications in a single year. The volume of applications demonstrates that many people are interested in its operator model and potential growth.
Bottom line: Bending Spoons is a long-term operator
Bottom line: Bending Spoons is not a financial buyer looking for a quick exit; it is an operator that purchases enduring brands, reconstructs their technology and business models, and attempts to hold them for the long run. Should it apply that formula to AOL, one of the web’s oldest household names may be on the verge of a very modern reboot.
