Italy supports a €500 million investment for the company 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 export credit agency, which is wholly owned by 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 these funds for acquiring additional companies. "Our goal is to enhance long-term value per share, and we remain committed to utilizing capital in a disciplined manner to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns, mainly through acquisitions," stated Davide Scarpazza, co-chief financial officer.

      SACE's role is to promote exports and assist the international expansion of Italian businesses. It oversees guarantees totaling around €290 billion across 200 markets.

      Bending Spoons does not focus heavily on exporting; rather, it acquires established digital products, revamps them, and retains ownership. Its website provides a timeline of acquisitions, listing dates such as Evernote in January 2023, Meetup in January 2024, and others including StreamYard, WeTransfer, Brightcove, komoot, and Vimeo in subsequent months. AOL and Eventbrite were added later, with most of these acquisitions being American, while WeTransfer hails from the Netherlands, and komoot is from Germany. Thus, the Italian government is underwriting financing that supports a national leader in acquiring foreign internet firms, which aligns with SACE's mission. Michele Pignotti, the chief executive of SACE, reiterated this point, emphasizing the agency's dedication to supporting prominent Italian companies that invest in innovation and enhance Italy's competitive standing in the global market.

      In addition to the SACE facility, Bending Spoons has entered into €495 million in additional Term Loan A financing and a €490 million expansion of its revolving credit facility, bringing the total to €1.49 billion in new and expanded financing since the onset of the second quarter. All of these arrangements also mature in March 2031, with the two non-guaranteed portions allocated for general corporate purposes and acquisitions. This financing follows the company's initial public offering (IPO), which was priced at $29 per share and closed in early July, raising nearly 58 million shares.

      European tech firms have increasingly turned to debt markets, raising billions through euro bonds over the past year.

      Bending Spoons’ acquisition strategy stands out, as it claims to have never sold a significant business. The company emphasizes its intent to acquire digital products "not to sell, but to own and operate long-term." The transformations it undertakes are substantial; the company restructures teams, updates technology, redesigns user interfaces, and overhauls monetization efforts, often integrating AI into the process. It utilizes proprietary systems across its portfolio for predicting lifetime value, managing payments, marketing attribution, and data handling, effectively overseeing ten consumer brands simultaneously.

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

      Reviewing the list of acquisitions reveals a trend: AOL was iconic in defining the consumer internet in the 1990s, while Evernote, Vimeo, Meetup, Eventbrite, and Brightcove each shaped their respective categories in the subsequent two decades. All these companies are now part of a firm established in Milan in 2014 and financed through an Italian government guarantee.

      Concerns have circulated within Europe about American companies purchasing local startups; this scenario represents a reverse trend, coinciding with a broader acceleration of European consolidation. Milan is also gaining prominence, with companies like Anthropic opening offices to cater to enterprise clients.

      A crucial question remains regarding what occurs when growth eventually levels off. A model reliant on debt for acquisitions remains viable only as long as those acquisitions continue to perform. With €1.49 billion in new borrowing capacity, Bending Spoons has a five-year deadline to demonstrate the success of its strategy.