/Tech8h ago

Bending Spoons files for an IPO, revealing its rise from near-collapse to $1.3 billion in annual revenue

The company scales by acquiring and rebuilding digital applications.

841.1K921.8K476K

#124

Original post

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag#124inTech

Worth a listen with Bending Spoons filing to go public today.

We talk about their origins, playbook, talent and everything in between.

Couple things I liked from their S-1: - Luck plays a big role in finding PMF

- Luck is irrelevant when pursuing operational excellence

- Talent > experience: "Nearly all of our businesses and functions are led by people in their twenties or thirties, most of whom had little or no work experience prior to joining Bending Spoons."

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag

Luca Ferrari is the co-founder and CEO of @bendingspoons, one of the most fascinating companies in Europe and just became Italy's first decacorn.

He describes it as 25% private equity firm and 75% technology company. They fully acquire and rebuild digital companies like Evernote, Vimeo, and most recently AOL.

@luke10ferrari shares exactly how the Bending Spoons playbook works — how they find great businesses, improve every core function, and finance them with both debt and equity to own and operate forever.

We also talk about his obsession with attracting and developing exceptional talent and why he's determined to build a generational company in Europe.

Enjoy!

Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:30 What is Bending Spoons? 4:30 Why Europe Lacks Trillion-Dollar Companies 7:25 The First Test: From Failure to Founding 10:52 The McKinsey Years & Funding Co-founders 13:24 The Strategic Insight: Why M&A Over Building 16:13 Structural Advantages of the Platform Model 21:00 Talent as the Ultimate Edge 22:50 Rejecting Consensus 26:28 Early Days: From $10K to Billions 30:52 The Evernote Transformation 36:17 Pricing Power & Monetization Sophistication 40:32 Valuation & Deal Discipline 44:52 Financing Strategy 1:01:47 No Variable Pay: A Contrarian Approach 1:04:14 Areas of Dissatisfaction & Regulatory Frustration 1:09:25 Raising Europe's Largest Private Debt Round 1:13:28 AI's Impact on Software Businesses 1:17:26 Building Culture: State of the Spoon & Retreats 1:20:20 Why There Aren't More Bending Spoons 1:23:35 The Kindest Thing

7:33 AM · Jun 8, 2026 · 36.6K Views

/Tech8h ago

Bending Spoons files for an IPO, revealing its rise from near-collapse to $1.3 billion in annual revenue

The company scales by acquiring and rebuilding digital applications.

841.1K921.8K476K

#124

Original post

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag#124inTech

Worth a listen with Bending Spoons filing to go public today.

We talk about their origins, playbook, talent and everything in between.

Couple things I liked from their S-1: - Luck plays a big role in finding PMF

- Luck is irrelevant when pursuing operational excellence

- Talent > experience: "Nearly all of our businesses and functions are led by people in their twenties or thirties, most of whom had little or no work experience prior to joining Bending Spoons."

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag

Luca Ferrari is the co-founder and CEO of @bendingspoons, one of the most fascinating companies in Europe and just became Italy's first decacorn.

He describes it as 25% private equity firm and 75% technology company. They fully acquire and rebuild digital companies like Evernote, Vimeo, and most recently AOL.

We also talk about his obsession with attracting and developing exceptional talent and why he's determined to build a generational company in Europe.

Enjoy!

7:33 AM · Jun 8, 2026 · 36.6K Views

Sentiment

Users are excited about Bending Spoons' growth from a failed app to $1.3B revenue and its IPO filing, praising the arc as inspiring and the discussion of luck versus operations as refreshing.

Pos

100.0%

Neg

0.0%

4 comments with sentiment.

Cluster Engagement

Posts from X

Most Activity

VIEWS12.9KBOOKMARKS52LIKES113REPLIES7

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

Incredible opener to a filing to go public 👇

From a failed first product and 4 months of runway to $1.3B of annual revenue

Congrats to the @bendingspoons team!

6h12.9K11352

RETWEETS71

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag

Luca Ferrari is the co-founder and CEO of @bendingspoons, one of the most fascinating companies in Europe and just became Italy's first decacorn.

He describes it as 25% private equity firm and 75% technology company. They fully acquire and rebuild digital companies like Evernote, Vimeo, and most recently AOL.

We also talk about his obsession with attracting and developing exceptional talent and why he's determined to build a generational company in Europe.

Enjoy!

216d422.2K8251.6K

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

1⃣ The team's underlying philosophy is that product-market fit in consumer requires a lot of luck

...but, execution does not (you can build a playbook)

They acquire products that are already "working" to some extent, and make them work better at bigger scale

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

The Bending Spoons F-1 is full of lessons for builders 👇

Their model is unique - they acquire businesses (ex. Eventbrite, AOL, Evernote, Vimeo) and rebuild the product + marketing

They've grown to $1.3B in annual revenue...which is accelerating at scale!

4h1.5K144

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

2⃣ They've fully embraced AI internally

The founders' first failed product in 2013 was actually AI

Now, 70% of pull requests at the company are created by AI alone (no human)

This has allowed them to materially increase revenue / employee - at $0.97M in Q1 2026 alone

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

1⃣ The team's underlying philosophy is that product-market fit in consumer requires a lot of luck

...but, execution does not (you can build a playbook)

They acquire products that are already "working" to some extent, and make them work better at bigger scale

4h1.2K94

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

3⃣ Growth is largely organic

This is controversial (especially for paid subscription apps - and 84% of their revenue comes from subscription, only 12% of ads)

83% of their growth is organic. Sales & marketing is only ~10% of revenue and actually decreasing over time

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

2⃣ They've fully embraced AI internally

The founders' first failed product in 2013 was actually AI

Now, 70% of pull requests at the company are created by AI alone (no human)

This has allowed them to materially increase revenue / employee - at $0.97M in Q1 2026 alone

4h61562

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

5⃣ They re-allocate resources across products over time

The team has made 50+ acquisitions, and never shut down a product - they migrate people to where there's pull

Ex. they acquired Remini in 2021, and doubled down w/ genAI in 2023. Revenue is now up 951% since 2021

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

4⃣ Retention matters, even in consumer / prosumer

Bending Spoons' NRR is 94% as of Q1 2026, with a weighted average revenue tenure of 8 years per subscriber

The same is true of businesses they acquire, which expand in revenue over time

4h73952

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

4⃣ Retention matters, even in consumer / prosumer

Bending Spoons' NRR is 94% as of Q1 2026, with a weighted average revenue tenure of 8 years per subscriber

The same is true of businesses they acquire, which expand in revenue over time

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

3⃣ Growth is largely organic

This is controversial (especially for paid subscription apps - and 84% of their revenue comes from subscription, only 12% of ads)

83% of their growth is organic. Sales & marketing is only ~10% of revenue and actually decreasing over time

4h83130

AlexArt ✳️@0xAlexArt

@patrick_oshag bending spoons playbook is a wild read fr

luck for pmf, zero luck for execution is cold

8h1821

Saroshssnair@saroshssnair

@patrick_oshag zuckerberg on why experience isn't that important

6h671

Alex Hovansky@Alex_TGH

@patrick_oshag that luck vs ops take is actually refreshing. most founders skip the first part entirely

7h101

malewicz 🎨@malewiczz

@omooretweets @bendingspoons i congratulate you from the bottom of my heart

6h62

ZacD@ZackD0x

@omooretweets @bendingspoons crazy arc honestly, went from near zero to billion scale like it was coded into their dna

5h36

Ruben Harris@rubenharris

@omooretweets @bendingspoons 🔥

5h24

Steven Collard@stalmico

@omooretweets @bendingspoons what was the failed first product?

5h19

Ferbin@Ferbin08

@patrick_oshag Finding PMF isn't luck. It's the founders who measure everything and move faster. They just look lucky because everyone else quit.

6h19

Max Informatiker@maxm_ideas

@omooretweets Execution > luck. Every time.

3h2