Bending Spoons has identified more than 1,000 software companies it could potentially acquire, according to its IPO prospectus — a pipeline of targets that together generated nearly $400 billion in estimated revenue in 2025. The disclosure lays bare the scale of the Milan-based company's ambition to keep consolidating the software industry brand by brand.

The company's portfolio already includes some of the internet's most recognizable names: Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, AOL and Eventbrite. It has not slowed since its stock market debut in July. Since the IPO, it has completed acquisitions of Airtable and Miro, and in October, Berkshire Hathaway invested another $330 million, lifting its ownership stake to 4%.

What drives the buy-and-restructure model?

The strategy is straightforward: buy an established product with paying customers, reorganize the company, cut costs, improve the technology, and use the profits to fund more acquisitions. Building a successful software business from scratch is expensive and uncertain — years of development and customer acquisition with no guarantee of payment. Buying removes much of that risk.

"From an investor's perspective, the fundamental advantage is that you're buying proven behavior rather than financing the search for it," said Vince Molinari, a financial services expert and founder and CEO of Fintech Media Group.

Molinari places particular weight on customer retention over headline growth. "Revenue tells you what customers paid yesterday. Retention helps tell you whether they'll still be paying tomorrow," he told Fast Company. A business with loyal subscribers and inefficient operations can be more attractive than a fast-growing one whose customers regularly leave.

How strong are the numbers?

The company's second-quarter results, reported in its SEC filing, show the model's financial appeal:

• Revenue rose 126% from a year earlier to $704 million.
• Operating income increased 139% to $240 million.
• Stripping out revenue added by acquisitions, growth was just 3%.

That organic figure shows how heavily expansion still depends on buying businesses rather than growing the ones it already owns.

"The next billion-dollar opportunity doesn't necessarily start with the next big idea," said Nadja Atwal, an international business adviser. "Sometimes it starts with recognizing that someone else's old big idea still has plenty of life left in it."

What happens to the workforce after a deal?

Bending Spoons is unusually willing to make sweeping changes after closing a deal. Its IPO filing disclosed that AOL, Eventbrite and Vimeo collectively brought roughly 1,830 full-time-equivalent employees into the company — and that the company planned to retain only a few hundred of them after restructuring.

The scale of the cuts has drawn criticism, but Vimeo illustrates the case Bending Spoons makes for its approach. During the second quarter, the company reported more than 30 product improvements at Vimeo, a roughly 90% reduction in system-stability incidents compared with pre-acquisition levels, and uploads and searches that became at least 30% faster. These are company-reported figures, and improvements in speed and reliability do not reveal how customers feel about pricing, support or product direction.

Matteo Danieli, Bending Spoons' cofounder and VP of product, told Fast Company last month that acquisition-driven growth frees his teams to concentrate on improving existing products. "We do not necessarily need to prove massive growth on products, and so we are actually free to focus on what's useful for users," he said.

Cutting too deeply carries its own risk: losing experienced employees and the knowledge needed to maintain and improve a product. "You can make almost any company look better for several quarters by cutting enough people and expenses. The real test is what happens three or five years later," Molinari said.

How central is AI to the strategy?

Bending Spoons is betting that AI will let it accomplish more with smaller teams. Its IPO prospectus estimated that AI authored or coauthored more than 90% of software-code changes submitted for review by the end of March 2026, up from less than 10% a year earlier. Engineers still review code, make decisions and verify reliability, but the shift shows how extensively AI now runs through the company's development operation.

"AI is rapidly reducing the cost of developing, maintaining, and improving software," said Mohamed Mohamed, founder and CEO of applied AI company SmartBricks and a venture scout at a16z Speedrun. "That potentially makes acquiring established software businesses even more attractive because an acquirer can operate them with a fundamentally different cost structure."

Marina Mogilko, an entrepreneur, investor and creator who hosts the Silicon Valley Girl podcast, sees a parallel in the creator economy: Electrify Video Partners' majority investment in Veritasium, the science YouTube channel founded by Derek Muller. Electrify provides operational and commercial support while Muller retains an ownership stake and keeps creating content.

"Centralizing operations, hiring, and monetization under one roof frees creative teams to focus on their craft, while giving the buyer decades of built-in brand trust and organic distribution that would cost a fortune to build from scratch today," Mogilko said.

The comparison has limits. Muller remains central to Veritasium, while Bending Spoons has often replaced much of the original workforce at companies it acquires — raising the question of how much institutional knowledge an acquirer can afford to lose.

Can the model survive cheaper software?

The same AI tools that could make Bending Spoons' acquisitions more profitable may also make the software it buys easier to compete against. As AI coding tools lower development costs, smaller teams can increasingly build products that once required far greater resources, forcing established businesses to give customers compelling reasons to stay.

Cheaper development could also reshape how investors value acquisitions. "I believe we're moving towards a world where the value of a software company is increasingly determined by the assets surrounding its technology rather than the technology itself," Mohamed said. Established businesses hold an advantage only if their customers, distribution networks and other assets stay difficult to replicate.

Bending Spoons retains real advantages that newcomers would struggle to match: acquisition experience, access to financing and an expanding technical operation. But acquisitions require capital, and the company ended June with approximately $4.09 billion in net debt — raising the stakes on generating lasting returns from every business it buys.

"Ultimately, the sustainability of this model depends on whether customer lifetime value improves, not simply whether EBITDA increases," Mohamed said.

A list of more than 1,000 prospective targets suggests finding companies to buy will not be the immediate problem. Mogilko puts the test after the deal closes: "The real question — and the biggest risk to this model's long-term sustainability — is how you maintain the soul of the company after replacing the original team and raising prices."

Every acquisition brings customers whose loyalty was earned long before Bending Spoons arrived. Its future may depend as much on giving them reasons to stay as on finding the next business to buy.