Bending Spoons just went public: Italy won the World Cup
Bending Spoons, the Italian app developer behind Evernote and Meetup, went public on Euronext Milan, marking a major milestone for the company and the Italian tech scene. The IPO raised €650 million, making it the largest listing from an Italian tech company. CEO Luca Ferrari compared the achievement to winning the World Cup for Italian entrepreneurship.
Background
- Bending Spoons is an Italian tech company known for acquiring struggling apps (e.g., Evernote, MeetUp, WeTransfer) and aggressively restructuring them to become profitable. The company is headquartered in Milan and led by CEO Luca Ferrari.
- "Bending Spoons went public" refers to their IPO (initial public offering) on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange, which took place on April 16, 2025. The company was valued at around €2.5–3 billion.
- The "World Cup" metaphor in the title and article compares Italy's 2006 FIFA World Cup victory to Bending Spoons' IPO as a major national tech achievement. Italy has historically produced few large, globally successful tech companies compared to the US or China, so this IPO is seen as a landmark event for the Italian tech ecosystem.
- The article likely covers the company's unusual business model (acqui-hiring, radical cost-cutting, product revamps) and the significance of a European, and specifically Italian, software company achieving a public listing at this scale.