Friends through the Bending Spoons preliminary public providing (IPO) on the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, US, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
On the time of its Nasdaq debut in July, Bending Spoons was a little-known holding firm out of Italy that owned older web names like AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite and Evernote.
Lower than 4 months later, the Milan-based agency has emerged as a shocking residence for former high-flying software program startups which were thrust apart by the synthetic intelligence increase. Its M&A plan obtained a significant increase this week from essentially the most well-known holding firm on the planet: Berkshire Hathaway.
Berkshire, which Bending Spoons describes as a “longstanding inspiration” for its technique, has now invested over $900 million within the firm, together with a $330 million stake disclosed on Wednesday. Wall Avenue beloved the deal, sending Bending Spoons’ replenish 41%, although a few of these features have been misplaced later within the week, leaving the corporate with a market cap of about $30 billion.
“Berkshire’s resolution so as to add to its place just some months after the IPO and at these ranges supplies one other vote of confidence within the Bending Spoons mannequin from one of many world’s most revered long-term traders,” wrote analysts at Mizuho, in a report after the announcement.
The opposite large information out of Bending Spoons this week underscores the flipside of the enterprise: job cuts. In August, Bending Spoons introduced it was shopping for workflow software program supplier Airtable for about $1.3 billion, or nearly 90% beneath the corporate’s peak valuation from late 2021. Bending Spoons mentioned Monday {that a} “giant portion of the pre-acquisition crew” from Airtable can be leaving with “substantial separation packages.” Layoffs have been beforehand applied at Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer and others within the portfolio.
For the expertise business, Bending Spoons’ strikes symbolize the newest instance of how shortly fortunes are turning within the AI period, as new brokers powered by giant language fashions displace software program builders and the merchandise they constructed. With Anthropic and OpenAI marching towards trillion-dollar valuations, companies are placing extra useful work of their arms on the expense of a bunch of software-as-a-service names, making a phenomenon that is develop into referred to as the “SaaSpocalypse.”
Shares of Intuit, HubSpot and Adobe are all down a minimum of 30% this 12 months, and a protracted checklist of personal SaaS firms that have been as soon as enterprise darlings at the moment are struggling to search out capital, with the general public market displaying no urge for food for IPOs. Final month, Bending Spoons agreed to purchase collaboration software program vendor Miro, as soon as valued at $17.5 billion, for $1.36 billion.
“You are both like a scorching factor otherwise you’re nothing,” mentioned Ethan Kurzweil, founder and managing accomplice at Chemistry VC and a veteran software program investor. Kurzweil mentioned he makes use of Airtable, and mentioned there are many good SaaS merchandise in the marketplace led by strong groups, “however they are not on the frontier anymore.”
An app turned acquirer
Bending Spoons was launched in 2013 by pals Luca Ferrari, the CEO, Matteo Danieli and Francesco Patarnello. A cell app they’d created referred to as Evertale did not take off, they usually used the $40,000 they’d left to construct an working firm as a substitute of “merchandise no one needed,” in keeping with the IPO prospectus.
Bending Spoons has introduced all of its greatest offers in the previous couple of years, starting with Evernote in 2022, adopted by Brightcove in 2024, and Vimeo, AOL and Eventbrite in 2025.
The corporate held its IPO on June 30, elevating about $1.7 billion at $29 a share, and hit the Nasdaq the following day. The inventory closed Friday at $47.07.
Inventory chart of Bending Spoons since its July 1st preliminary public providing date.
Previous to Bending Spoons’ latest bounce into enterprise software program, a few of the main acquirers within the area over the previous decade have been personal fairness behemoths Thoma Bravo and Vista Fairness Companions. These corporations have been aiming to purchase what they considered as undervalued SaaS firms and, by a mix of value cuts, effectivity enhancements and rollups, flip them into belongings that may very well be bought or taken public at the next value.
Bending Spoons is utilizing a special playbook. The corporate is not searching for eventual exits however fairly needs to generate earnings from the companies it buys, just like the Warren Buffett mannequin. However not like Berkshire, Bending Spoons’ focus is expertise, and it is taking a hands-on method with its personal software program, operations and personnel selections.
Nick Mehta, former CEO of cloud software program vendor Gainsight, mentioned personal fairness corporations are restricted now as a result of “they obtained their nostril bloodied.”
“They paid a lot increased costs and have so many troubled firms that it is troublesome for them to take swings now,” mentioned Mehta, who bought Gainsight to Vista in 2020.
Thoma Bravo and Vista did not reply to requests for interviews. Bending Spoons instructed CNBC in an announcement that it hadn’t been outbid for a goal in “a number of years.”
As the corporate began leaping into SaaS, Mehta mentioned “Bending Spooned” grew to become a verb in Silicon Valley, referring to firms getting scooped up for pennies on the greenback.
“Sadly, numerous my pals in that recreation are caught,” Mehta mentioned. “Traders need out however there aren’t any patrons. Something pre-ChatGPT is legacy now.”
Lloyd Walmsley, an analyst at Mizuho, mentioned Bending Spoons’ mannequin is distinct from the older buyout method.
“I feel there aren’t lots of people that do what these guys do when it comes to the depth of operations and the willingness to make substantial product adjustments,” Walmsley mentioned in an interview. “It isn’t typical of conventional personal fairness corporations to make wherever close to this stage of change.”
Matteo Danieli, co-founder of Bending Spoons, heart, through the firm’s preliminary public providing (IPO) on the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, US, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
For patrons of the businesses that Bending Spoons buys, sudden value hikes can observe.
In April 2023, months after the Evernote acquisition, Bending Spoons lifted the annual private subscription value to $130 from $70. Later, the corporate modified its choices, charging $100 for its so-called starter plan and $250 for “Evernote Superior,” in comparison with the $170 it had been charging for the professional plan.
“My first response was like, Oh man, I assume I’ve to change to OneNote,” mentioned Walmsley, referring to Microsoft’s notetaking app. However he mentioned he caught with Evernote.
“They’re actually savvy at discovering this stuff that they supply numerous worth, and the switching prices are actually excessive,” Walmsley mentioned. “The worth is not that prime relative to the switching value.”
Bending Spoons makes use of the earnings from its portfolio firms for future development, the “overwhelming majority” of which comes from doing extra offers, Ferrari instructed CNBC in an interview on Thursday.
“There are specific alternatives for enchancment we are able to unlock over the primary few years, after which the enterprise could have no matter natural development is intrinsic in that market,” Ferrari mentioned.
For Berkshire and its fellow Bending Spoons traders, the wager remains to be unproven.
The merchandise have to stay fascinating sufficient that prospects are prepared to pay up at a time when AI is squeezing margins throughout a lot of the software program sector. In its first earnings report as a public firm in August, Bending Spoons mentioned income greater than doubled from a 12 months earlier to over $700 million, with development nearly fully pushed by acquisitions, whereas web revenue climbed 171% to $177 million.
That was earlier than the Airtable deal had closed and Miro had but to be introduced. Within the coming quarters and years, Wall Avenue will get a transparent image of whether or not the agency’s construction can revive software program.
On the earnings name in August, an analyst requested whether or not Airtable represents a long-term shift within the M&A technique in the direction of enterprise.
Ferrari mentioned that about half of Bending Spoons’ income already comes from skilled companies, largely by Brightcove and Vimeo, which has an enterprise element. The concentrate on software program of late, he mentioned, has extra to do with the place he is discovering worth after a hefty selloff.
“Most enterprise SaaS companies have been valued at irrationally excessive ranges till considerably not too long ago,” Ferrari mentioned. “We by no means noticed these costs making any sense.”
— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.
