Italy supports €500 million for the firm that owns AOL.

      Bending Spoons has secured a €500 million loan facility backed by the Italian government. The guarantee is provided by SACE, Italy's state-owned export credit agency, which operates under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The facility, arranged by HSBC Continental Europe, Intesa Sanpaolo, and BPER Banca, is set to mature in March 2031. The Milan-based company plans to use the funds for acquisitions.

      “Our goal is to enhance long-term shareholder value, and we are dedicated to deploying capital judiciously to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns, mainly through acquisitions,” stated Davide Scarpazza, co-chief financial officer.

      SACE defines its role as promoting exports and facilitating the global expansion of Italian enterprises. It oversees guarantees totaling approximately €290 billion across 200 markets. Despite being primarily a digital product acquirer, Bending Spoons does not engage heavily in exports; instead, it buys proven digital products, improves them, and maintains ownership.

      The company’s website outlines its portfolio, including acquisitions like Evernote in January 2023, Meetup in January 2024, StreamYard that April, and WeTransfer that July. Brightcove and komoot were added in early 2025, with Vimeo following in November. AOL was acquired in January 2026, and Eventbrite in March. Most of these acquisitions are of American companies, with WeTransfer being Dutch and komoot German. Thus, the Italian government is supporting debt that enables a national champion to acquire foreign internet firms.

      This aligns with SACE’s mission, and CEO Michele Pignotti made this rationale clear. He noted the agency’s dedication to "supporting prominent Italian corporations that invest in innovation, enter global markets, and enhance Italy's innovation ecosystem competitiveness."

      In the last four months, Bending Spoons has also arranged an additional €495 million in term loan A financing and €490 million to expand its revolving credit facility, totaling €1.49 billion in new and expanded facilities since the second quarter began. All of these facilities are set to mature in March 2031, with the non-guaranteed loans available for general corporate use and acquisitions.

      This financing comes after Bending Spoons’ IPO, which was priced at $29 per share and concluded in early July, raising nearly 58 million shares. Over the past year, European tech firms have increasingly turned to debt markets, raising billions through euro bonds.

      Bending Spoons adopts an unconventional approach for a company of its scale, asserting it has never divested a significant business. Its philosophy is clear: it acquires digital products “not to sell, but to own and operate for the long haul.” This strategy involves extensive transformations, such as reorganizing teams, revamping technology, redesigning interfaces, and restructuring monetization, often with AI as a core focus. The company employs proprietary systems for lifetime value prediction, payment processing, marketing attribution, and data management, allowing it to handle ten consumer brands simultaneously.

      As of March 2026, these brands collectively catered to over 500 million monthly active users and more than 9 million paying customers.

      Analyzing the acquisition list reveals a trend. AOL shaped the consumer internet landscape of the 1990s, while Evernote, Vimeo, Meetup, Eventbrite, and Brightcove each defined their respective categories in the subsequent two decades. All are now under the ownership of a company established in Milan in 2014, bolstered by an Italian government guarantee.

      Europe has long been concerned about American firms acquiring its startups. This scenario, however, represents a shift in that dynamic, occurring concurrently with an acceleration of broader European consolidation. Milan is also gaining prominence, as demonstrated by Anthropic opening an office there to engage enterprise clients.

      The unresolved question remains what will happen if acquisition momentum wanes. The model that finances acquisitions through debt is sustainable only as long as those acquisitions continue to perform well. With €1.49 billion in new funding and a five-year timeline, Bending Spoons faces this critical challenge.