--- title: "Bending Spoons, Owner of AOL and Evernote, Files for a Nasdaq IPO" description: "Bending Spoons — the Milan-based company that has bought up faded digital brands including AOL, Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer — has filed for a U.S. listing, putting one of Europe's most distinctive software roll-ups, and its hard-nosed playbook, in front of public investors." category: "Companies" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/companies author: "Daniel Okonkwo" published: 2026-06-27T11:43:40.000Z updated: 2026-06-27T11:43:40.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/bending-spoons-owner-of-aol-and-evernote-files-for-a-nasdaq-ipo tags: ["ipo", "bending-spoons", "aol", "evernote", "software", "nasdaq"] --- # Bending Spoons, Owner of AOL and Evernote, Files for a Nasdaq IPO Bending Spoons — the Milan-based company that has bought up faded digital brands including AOL, Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer — has filed for a U.S. listing, putting one of Europe's most distinctive software roll-ups, and its hard-nosed playbook, in front of public investors. Bending Spoons, the Milan-based software company behind a string of well-known consumer brands, [filed paperwork on June 8 for a U.S. initial public offering](https://fortune.com/2026/06/08/bending-spoons-italian-aol-evernote-wetransfer-files-us-ipo/), Fortune reported, applying to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker "BSP." It is one of the largest European tech listings to head for New York in some time. ## What Bending Spoons does Founded in Milan in 2013, Bending Spoons does not build apps from scratch. It buys established but fading digital products, cuts their running costs hard, pushes users onto paid subscriptions and raises prices — then runs the resulting cash flows across a growing portfolio. The label "software developer" undersells it; the operating logic is closer to private equity. That portfolio now spans more than fifty acquisitions. Ten of them — AOL, Brightcove, Eventbrite, Evernote, Harvest, Komoot, Remini, StreamYard, Vimeo and WeTransfer — generated more than 80% of revenue, [according to the company's filing as reported by Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/08/bending-spoons-italian-aol-evernote-wetransfer-files-us-ipo/). The inclusion of AOL — the dial-up-era icon, bought from Yahoo — is what has drawn comparisons to a dot-com brand brought back to public markets, this time as a cash generator inside a leaner holding company. ## The playbook, and its critics The model is efficient and divisive. After buying file-transfer service WeTransfer in 2024, Bending Spoons cut a large share of the staff; note-taking app Evernote was gutted after its takeover. Reported price increases have followed at several products. Supporters point to the results: revenue grew 95% year over year to $1.31 billion in 2025, Fortune reported, and the company says it now reaches 500 million monthly active users with 9 million paying customers as of March 2026. It also says about 70% of its recent code was written entirely by artificial intelligence, a sign of how aggressively it automates. Critics counter that deep layoffs and steep price hikes can erode the very goodwill and brand value that made an acquisition attractive — a risk that grows as the portfolio expands and the company needs ever-larger deals to keep moving the needle. ## The IPO terms The filing itself did not specify the size or valuation of the offering. The Next Web reported that the company is targeting a valuation of roughly [$19 billion and a raise of up to about $1.6 billion](https://thenextweb.com/news/bending-spoons-ipo-pricing-19-billion-valuation-nasdaq), with a Nasdaq debut expected in early July — figures that, until pricing is confirmed, should be treated as reported targets rather than settled terms. For context, Bending Spoons last raised private capital in late 2025 at a valuation well below that level, so an IPO near $19 billion would mark a sharp step up. One feature investors will weigh is governance. Like many founder-led tech firms, Bending Spoons is using a dual-class share structure, with the founders' Class A shares carrying five votes each to the public's one, Fortune reported — meaning new shareholders get economic exposure but little say. ## Why it matters A successful listing would be a notable European tech IPO and a real-time market test of the "buy mature software and squeeze it" model at scale. The bull case is recurring subscription revenue, rapid growth and ruthless cost discipline. The bear case is that the growth depends on a steady supply of attractively priced targets and on customers tolerating higher prices and thinner products. Public investors will now get to price that trade-off for themselves. ## Sources - [Bending Spoons, the Italian app acquirer behind AOL, Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer, files for a US IPO](https://fortune.com/2026/06/08/bending-spoons-italian-aol-evernote-wetransfer-files-us-ipo/) - [Bending Spoons targets a roughly $19 billion Nasdaq valuation](https://thenextweb.com/news/bending-spoons-ipo-pricing-19-billion-valuation-nasdaq)