When it listed on Nasdaq in July, Bending Spoons came to market as a relatively unknown Italian holding company with a roster that included AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite and Evernote. Fewer than four months later, it had become a landing spot for once high-flying software names sidelined by the artificial intelligence rush. The firm said it had not been outbid for a target in "several years."
The buying spree is real: in August, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Airtable for about $1.3 billion, and last month it reached a $1.36 billion agreement to purchase Miro, which had been valued at $17.5 billion at its peak. The company says it is building for ownership and cash generation rather than exits, taking an active role in product, operations and people.
Bending Spoons calls Berkshire a "longstanding inspiration" for its approach, and Berkshire has now invested over $900 million, including a newly disclosed $330 million stake. "Berkshire's decision to add to its position just a few months after the IPO and at these levels provides another vote of confidence in the Bending Spoons model from one of the world's most respected long-term investors," Mizuho analysts wrote.
Mizuho's Lloyd Walmsley said the playbook stands out for how deeply it reshapes products and operations. You can see it in pricing: months after acquiring Evernote, the annual personal plan went to $130 from $70, and later the lineup shifted to $100 for a starter plan and $250 for "Evernote Advanced," versus $170 for the prior pro option. Walmsley said he considered switching to Microsoft's OneNote but stuck with Evernote due to the value and high switching costs.
Bending Spoons' strategy diverges from private equity giants like Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity Partners, which spent the last decade buying what they viewed as undervalued SaaS firms to streamline and eventually sell or re-list. "They paid much higher prices and have so many troubled companies that it's difficult for them to take swings now," said Nick Mehta, former Gainsight CEO, who sold the company to Vista in 2020. In Silicon Valley, "Bending Spooned" became shorthand for getting acquired for a bargain.
The cost side is front and center. The company has reduced headcount at Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer and other holdings, and said Monday that a "large portion of the pre-acquisition team" at Airtable will depart with "substantial separation packages." As for the deal pipeline, Chemistry VC founder and managing partner Ethan Kurzweil summed up the market mood: "You're either like a hot thing or you're nothing." He added that plenty of solid SaaS products remain, but "they're not on the frontier anymore."
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In August, Bending Spoons unveiled its initial quarterly results since listing, reporting revenue above $700 million - more than double from a year earlier - driven almost entirely by acquisitions, with net income up 171% to $177 million. Those figures landed before Airtable closed and before the Miro deal was announced. CEO Luca Ferrari said the "overwhelming majority" of future growth will come from more deals, noting early years after acquisition can unlock improvements before growth settles into what the market allows.
Ferrari also noted that roughly half of revenue now originates from professional lines of business, predominantly via Brightcove and the enterprise side of Vimeo. The recent tilt toward software, he said, reflects where he sees value after a steep selloff: "Most enterprise SaaS businesses were valued at irrationally high levels until somewhat recently."
Context matters: AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI are racing toward trillion-dollar territory, while many public SaaS stocks are under pressure. This year, shares of Intuit, HubSpot and Adobe are each down at least 30%, and many private SaaS darlings are struggling to raise capital as IPO windows stay shut. The bottom line: Bending Spoons is leaning into roll ups and pricing resets just as AI rewrites software economics, with Berkshire's checkbook signaling patience for the model.
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