Bending Spoons submits a filing for a US IPO on Nasdaq.

      Bending Spoons does not create many apps but rather acquires them, improves their financial status, and operates them. Now, it is seeking to have Wall Street invest in its operations.

      The Milan-based company, known for owning Evernote, WeTransfer, and Vimeo, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, submitting a Form F-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It intends to list its ordinary shares on the Nasdaq with the ticker symbol “BSP,” making it one of the most anticipated European tech debuts of the year.

      Although the company has yet to set a price, reports suggest that it is aiming for a valuation of around $20 billion, nearly double the $11.7 billion value it had during an equity raise only eight months ago.

      The filing reveals the reason for investors' interest: revenue climbed from $387 million in 2023 to $671 million in 2024 and is projected to reach $1.31 billion in 2025, marking a compound annual growth rate of 84 percent. CEO Luca Ferrari has indicated that adjusted earnings are expected to approximately double this year, reaching about $1.4 billion, with the portfolio now serving hundreds of millions of users and over nine million paying customers.

      What sets Bending Spoons apart is its growth strategy. Instead of aiming for the next big product launch, it operates similarly to a private-equity firm with an in-house engineering team, acquiring established yet underperforming digital products, cutting costs, and scaling them up. Its acquisitions include Evernote, Meetup, Brightcove, Eventbrite, AOL, the route-planning app Komoot, and, last November, Vimeo for about $1.38 billion.

      This approach can be profitable but often comes with significant layoffs, as Vimeo's employees learned.

      Choosing to list in New York instead of Europe is a significant decision. Despite attempts to create a pan-European alternative to Nasdaq, Europe’s largest tech companies still tend to prefer US markets for their larger capital pools and better valuations, a situation highlighted when Monzo compared New York and London.

      Bending Spoons, one of Europe’s most valuable privately held tech companies, is the latest to opt for Wall Street.

      This decision marks a notable advancement for Italy’s tech industry, which has historically been overshadowed by France and Germany, but is now attracting attention from companies like Anthropic to Milan. Founded in 2013 and led by Ferrari, who will retain control along with two co-founders through a special class of shares, Bending Spoons has successfully transformed a contrarian idea—that the internet is filled with valuable products poorly managed—into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

      The challenge it faces is typical of any roll-up strategy: growth that relies on identifying increasingly large targets and integrating them without compromising their intrinsic value.

      A public listing would provide Bending Spoons with additional resources to continue its acquisition strategy and would also, for the first time, demonstrate precisely how effectively its operations function.