Bending Spoons Surges 40% in $1.68bn Nasdaq IPO
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Bending Spoons priced its IPO at $29 per share, above the $26-28 marketed range, then leapt 39.7% to close at $40.50 on Wednesday, in an $18.4bn listing that raised $1.68bn and ranks as one of Europe's biggest tech IPOs this year.
- Co-founders Luca Ferrari, Francesco Patarnello, Matteo Danieli, and Luca Querella all became billionaires from the listing; Ferrari remains CEO of the group he co-founded in 2013.
- The Milan-based group has made 50 acquisitions including Vimeo (2025), AOL, and Eventbrite, targeting at least 25% annualised returns on capital — but unlike private equity rivals, Bending Spoons does not sell the companies after fixing them, and has identified 1,000 further potential targets.
- Bending Spoons posted $1.31bn in 2025 revenue, up from $387mn in 2023, with more than 500mn monthly active users and 9mn monthly paying customers as of March, per its prospectus.
- CEO Ferrari has been forced to defend large-scale job cuts at acquired companies, calling them the necessary price of the transformations his buy-and-fix model requires.
- The IPO is viewed as a bellwether for software-sector appetite amid fears that AI will disrupt traditional business models, and follows SpaceX's blockbuster June share offering as part of a recent listing wave.
- On the same day, Neutron Holdings — parent of e-bike rental group Lime — began trading in New York after raising $167mn in a $1.6bn listing.
Why it matters: Bending Spoons is the largest European tech IPO test of 2025, and its 40% pop signals that public investors will pay a premium for a software roll-up with a permanent-hold strategy — distinct from the PE playbook — even amid AI-disruption anxiety. Four co-founders became paper billionaires on day one, and the 1,000-target pipeline means future acquisitions of legacy consumer tech brands are likely to accelerate.
