Vimeo Owner Bending Spoons Seeks $1.62 Billion in Major US IPO

Italian tech conglomerate Bending Spoons, the company behind Vimeo, WeTransfer, AOL, and Eventbrite, is preparing for one of the year's biggest tech debuts. The Milan-based firm is seeking to raise up to $1.62 billion in a US initial public offering, in a move that would rank among the largest listings by a European company this year.

The IPO Details

Bending Spoons is seeking to raise as much as $1.62 billion in its US IPO, according to two people familiar with the matter, in what would be one of the largest IPOs by a European company this year and a rare listing by a major software firm. The company plans to market 58 million shares for $26 to $28 each, according to its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. About 60% of the IPO shares are expected to be sold by the company itself, with the remainder coming from existing shareholders, including Baillie Gifford.

At the top of that pricing range, the numbers point to a strikingly high valuation. Bending Spoons would carry a valuation of roughly $19 billion at the top of the price range, a significant jump from the $11 billion pre-money valuation the company achieved when it raised $710 million in late 2025. The company plans an early-July Nasdaq debut under the ticker BSP.

The Acquisition Playbook Behind the Brand

Bending Spoons' business model is unusual for a software company — it behaves more like a private equity firm than a traditional tech developer. Founded in Milan in 2013 by CEO Luca Ferrari and four co-founders with roughly $40,000 in seed capital, the company has grown through an aggressive acquisition strategy: it buys established but underperforming digital products, strips out costs, rebuilds the technology, and runs them at scale.

That strategy has produced an eclectic and growing portfolio. Its holdings span video platform Vimeo, acquired for $1.38 billion last year, file-sharing service WeTransfer, internet brand AOL, ticketing marketplace Eventbrite, note-taking app Evernote, outdoor navigation tool Komoot, and pet tracker Tractive. Other active businesses in the portfolio include Brightcove, Harvest, Remini, and StreamYard, with the company stating it has "not sold a material business" to date despite operating much like a PE firm.

The scale of this user base is substantial. Bending Spoons reports 500 million monthly active users as of March 2026, up from 111 million in December 2023, while paying customers grew from 3 million to 9 million over the same period. That growth, however, has come with significant leverage: the company has been borrowing heavily, with $4.36 billion in debt disclosed in its SEC filing.

From Losses to Profitability

The IPO arrives at a pivotal financial inflection point for the company. Bending Spoons reported a net loss of $112 million on revenue of $259 million in 2025, but turned that around in the first quarter of 2026, reporting net income of $27.5 million on revenue of $601 million for the three months ended March 31, compared with a net loss of $112.2 million on revenue of $259 million a year earlier.

Riding a Hot US IPO Market

The timing of this listing reflects a broader resurgence in US public offerings. Companies have raised a combined $150 billion through 179 US IPOs so far this year, the strongest start to a year since 2021, according to Dealogic. SpaceX's record-breaking debut earlier this month and Cerebras Systems' listing have reflected renewed appetite for high-profile technology offerings, setting an encouraging backdrop for Bending Spoons' own debut.

Analysts see the listing as part of a bigger trend pulling European tech firms toward US exchanges. BNP Paribas had argued that the wave of US mega-IPOs from SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic would pull European tech companies toward public markets, with Bending Spoons now the most prominent example of that thesis in action. For European tech, the listing underscores a persistent pattern: the continent's largest technology companies still choose US exchanges for their deeper capital pools and richer valuations.

The lead banks on the deal are Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, and Allen & Co, with shares expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. For ongoing, authoritative coverage of major IPO filings and SEC disclosures, the US Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR database remains the primary source for tracking official filings as they're submitted.

What's at Stake

Beyond the headline numbers, this IPO will serve as a real test of investor appetite for software roll-up companies. Bending Spoons' listing will test investor appetite for software companies, a sector that has produced relatively few large IPOs in recent years as artificial intelligence reshapes business models and intensifies competition. With an early-July Nasdaq debut on the horizon, the market's reception to Bending Spoons' unconventional acquisition-driven model could shape how other software consolidators approach going public in the months ahead.