Milan-based tech conglomerate Bending Spoons this week acquired Eventbrite for $500 million, adding the event ticketing platform to its growing portfolio of recognizable consumer tech brands.
The deal, announced Tuesday, marks the latest acquisition for the 12-year-old company that has quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers — despite remaining largely unknown to the general public.
So what exactly is Bending Spoons? Despite its catchy name, the company has stayed remarkably under the radar, and it typically makes headlines only when it adds another recognizable brand to its portfolio — which now includes Evernote, WeTransfer, Meetup, and Streamyard, among others.
But Bending Spoons isn’t a traditional private equity firm or a pure financial investment vehicle. Its focus is on acquiring underperforming but popular tech brands, then transforming them to serve millions of users more efficiently.
The company tends to make news when it restructures these acquired companies, often through significant layoffs, or makes controversial changes to beloved products — as it did with both Evernote and WeTransfer.
Still, Bending Spoons itself remains largely unknown, even though its roster of products has served more than a billion people, with over 300 million monthly active users and 10 million paying customers. Here’s what you need to know about the company reshaping some of the internet’s most recognizable brands.
What is Bending Spoons?
Bending Spoons describes itself as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. Having grown to a headcount of 400 to 500 employees (whom the company calls “Spooners”), its main focus is on making improvements to products and services that others have created.
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However, it didn’t start that way — Bending Spoons’ founders had taken a stab at building their own apps and products before eventually shifting their focus.
The little-known backstory is that Bending Spoons was born out of the remains of Evertale, a Copenhagen-based startup that participated in Disrupt SF 2011’s Startup Alley and raised seed funding for its photo-sharing app, Wink.
Evertale failed not long after, and investor …