As Europe searches for ways to keep tech talent and build global companies, a Milan-based firm has quietly become one of the continent's most striking success stories. Bending Spoons, founded in 2013, now owns a portfolio of familiar digital brands—Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, and Eventbrite—and its revenue has more than tripled in two years, from $387 million (€338 million) in 2023 to $1.31 billion (€1.14 billion) in 2025. In July, the company listed on New York's Nasdaq exchange.
Most tech companies try to invent a product and persuade people to use it. Bending Spoons does the opposite: it buys established products with loyal user bases and then reworks them—rearchitecting the technology, redesigning the interface, changing pricing, and often cutting staff. “We rearchitect the technology, product, and organisation, all of which is designed to speed up innovation, benefit customers, and strengthen business performance,” Nicolle Wasserman, People Operations lead at Bending Spoons, told Euronews Next.
The approach has produced rapid growth. Subscriptions account for 84% of revenue, and by March 2026, its products reached more than 500 million monthly active users. But analysts caution that acquisition-led growth is not the same as organic growth. “Acquisition-led growth should not be confused with organic growth,” said Yoram Wijngaarde, founder and CEO of Dealroom, a global tech data firm. According to Dealroom's analysis, most of Bending Spoons' revenue surge comes from acquisitions, though its earlier products have also grown.
Expanding across Europe
Bending Spoons is also expanding its physical footprint. This week it opened an office in Warsaw, joining its headquarters in Milan and offices in London and Madrid. The company said it received 50,000 applications from candidates in Poland this year and plans to hire locally for work across its businesses. The Warsaw office gives a concrete European dimension to a company whose products and customers span the globe.
Wijngaarde sees broader significance in Bending Spoons' rise. “Europe can be the buyer and operator of global software businesses, not just where companies are built before being acquired from abroad,” he said. “The contribution includes operating expertise and talent in Europe—not simply acquired assets. This complements, rather than replaces, building new companies.”
But replicating Bending Spoons' success is not easy. “Others can follow, but capital alone is insufficient,” Wijngaarde said. “The hard part is repeatedly improving products and economics while retaining users through major changes.”
Can the model keep working?
As Bending Spoons buys larger and more varied businesses, the strategy could become harder to sustain. Wijngaarde warned that overpaying for acquisitions, taking on too much debt, or buying companies it is less equipped to run could derail the model. “Cost savings are finite; ultimately, customers must keep finding the products worth paying for,” he said.
The company's history shows the trade-offs. After acquiring Evernote in early 2023, it laid off most of its US- and Chile-based employees that July, moving operations to Europe. In 2024, it planned to cut about 75% of WeTransfer's workforce, roughly 260 of 350 workers. Such reductions do not necessarily mean product quality will suffer, according to Wijngaarde. The metrics to watch, he said, are “product quality, useful features and retention, not just headcount or margins.”
Whether Bending Spoons can keep growing will depend on whether users stay after the changes. Higher prices or reduced free access could push them away, though Wijngaarde said the effects need to be assessed product by product. For now, the company's trajectory is a reminder that Europe can build global tech businesses—even if the path is unconventional.
