Standfirst: Milan-based Bending Spoons has rapidly expanded by acquiring recognised digital brands including Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo and Eventbrite. Its growth highlights both the opportunity for European technology companies and the risks of a strategy built on repeated takeovers, restructuring and subscription revenue.
Italy’s Bending Spoons has become one of Europe’s most prominent technology companies by taking over familiar digital services rather than building every product from scratch. The Milan-based group has combined acquisitions, software redevelopment and cost restructuring to create a portfolio used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Founded in 2013, Bending Spoons acquired brands such as Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo and Eventbrite in recent years. Company revenue increased from $387 million (€338 million) in 2023 to $1.31 billion (€1.14 billion) in 2025, according to the figures cited in company filings. In July, it also listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.
How Bending Spoons’ acquisition model works
Rather than relying solely on the launch of new products, Bending Spoons typically buys established technology businesses with recognisable names, existing customers and a functioning product. It then applies its own operating model to the acquired company.
That process can involve restructuring teams, rewriting software, changing pricing, redesigning the user experience and introducing new marketing strategies. The company says it has internal engineering, payments, data-analysis and product-testing systems that can be used across its portfolio.
This approach has allowed Bending Spoons to build a collection of consumer-facing digital services in areas including:
- Note-taking and productivity software through Evernote
- File sharing and digital collaboration through WeTransfer
- Online video tools through Vimeo
- Event management through Eventbrite
- Video editing through Splice
- Artificial intelligence-powered photography through Remini
The company acquired Splice in 2018 and Remini in 2021, later adding features to both products. Its strategy is therefore not limited to cutting costs: it also aims to use common technology and operational expertise to develop the services it owns.
Revenue growth has been driven mainly by acquisitions
Bending Spoons’ rapid expansion illustrates the difference between acquisition-led growth and organic growth. Buying a business can add revenue and users quickly, but it does not necessarily mean that the underlying products have generated equivalent growth on their own.
Analysis cited from Dealroom indicates that acquisitions account for most of the company’s sharp increase in revenue, although earlier businesses in its portfolio have also expanded. This distinction matters because future performance will depend not only on finding more companies to buy, but also on improving the products after each takeover.
Subscriptions are central to the model. Company filings showed that subscription income represented 84 per cent of revenue in the first quarter of 2026. By March 2026, the group’s products had more than 500 million monthly active users.
Those figures give Bending Spoons a substantial audience, but they also create a continuing challenge: users must remain willing to pay for services after prices, features or access arrangements change.
Layoffs have followed several takeovers
The company’s restructuring strategy has also led to significant workforce reductions. After acquiring Evernote in early 2023, Bending Spoons laid off most of the app’s employees in the United States and Chile as operations were moved to Europe.
In 2024, it said it planned to reduce the WeTransfer workforce by about 75 per cent, affecting roughly 260 of the company’s 350 employees. Such decisions can reduce operating costs, but they may also affect institutional knowledge, customer support and the ability to develop products.
Workforce reductions have therefore become an important part of the debate around Bending Spoons’ approach. The company presents its restructuring as part of a broader effort to improve innovation and business performance, while the long-term test will be whether users continue to see meaningful improvements.
Warsaw office expands Bending Spoons’ European footprint
Bending Spoons has continued to build its European presence. The company opened an office in Warsaw, adding to its headquarters in Milan and offices in London and Madrid.
It said it had received 50,000 applications from candidates in Poland during 2026 and planned to recruit locally for work across its businesses. The move gives the company a larger base from which to access engineering and technology talent in Europe.
Its expansion is also significant in the wider debate about Europe’s technology sector. European companies are often described as sources of early-stage innovation that may later be acquired by larger businesses from the United States or elsewhere. Bending Spoons represents a different model: a European company acting as the buyer, operator and developer of global software brands.
That does not mean the strategy can easily be copied. The challenge is not simply raising capital to acquire businesses. It is maintaining users, improving products and managing major organisational changes without weakening the services customers rely on.
What could limit future growth?
Bending Spoons’ next phase may become more difficult as the businesses it targets grow larger and more diverse. A model that works for one subscription app may not transfer easily to a video platform, an event-management service or another complex digital business.
Key risks include:
- Paying too much for acquisitions
- Taking on excessive debt
- Buying companies outside its strongest areas of expertise
- Raising prices or reducing free access too aggressively
- Allowing cost reductions to weaken product quality or customer retention
Cost savings are limited over time. Once the easiest efficiencies have been found, continued growth depends on customers believing that the products remain useful and worth paying for.
For that reason, user retention, product quality and the introduction of useful features may provide a better indication of long-term performance than headcount or short-term margins alone.
Why the company matters to Europe’s technology sector
Bending Spoons’ rise offers a notable example of how European capital, talent and management expertise can support globally recognised technology businesses. Its headquarters remain in Milan, while its offices and recruitment drive connect the company to a wider European labour market.
The company’s success also raises broader questions about the future of Europe’s digital economy. Can European firms build scale without relocating ownership overseas? Can they acquire established global brands while preserving customer trust? And can aggressive restructuring coexist with sustained product innovation?
For now, Bending Spoons has demonstrated that a European technology company can assemble a large international portfolio through disciplined acquisitions. Its next test will be proving that the model can deliver lasting value after the initial savings and revenue gains from each takeover have passed.
Conclusion
Bending Spoons has built a powerful European technology platform by acquiring established digital brands and applying a common operating model to them. Its rising revenue, global user base and expansion into Warsaw show the potential of acquisition-led growth, but the strategy carries clear risks around pricing, debt, staff reductions and customer retention. The company’s long-term success will depend on whether it can keep improving the products people use—not simply on how many businesses it buys.
