In the fast-paced world of technology, few companies are as innovative and strong as Bending Spoons. Bending Spoons started out as a small business in Copenhagen in 2013 with four Italian engineers—Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello—and their Polish coworker Tomasz Greber. By 2024, it had grown into one of Europe’s most exciting tech unicorns, with a value of $2.55 billion. The company’s motto, “Impossible. Maybe,” is inspired by the famous scene in The Matrix where a spoon bends. It shows how determined the company is to make the impossible possible with cutting-edge technology and a constant focus on making a difference. This is the story of how Bending Spoons went from a small business to a world leader in making mobile apps.
A Rough Start and a Brave Plan
Bending Spoons’ journey started with a lesson in how to fail. Before starting the business, the founders had failed with their first startup, Evertail, which went out of business after two years. Instead of giving up, the team used this experience to motivate them for their next project. Bending Spoons was started in Copenhagen, but in 2014 the founders moved it to Milan. This move let them use their Italian roots and local connections. Their goal was clear: to make mobile apps that improve people’s lives and have a good effect on customers, employees, and society as a whole.
Bending Spoons did things differently than most startups that try to get venture capital right away. The founders of the company wanted to keep control and focus on long-term sustainability, so they bootstrapped their operations. This method worked quickly; Bending Spoons was already making money within weeks of moving to Milan. By 2018, the company had a portfolio of 12 apps, more than 200 million downloads, and 270,000 new users every day. Its revenue was more than €45 million.
A Change in Strategy to Acquisitions
The way Bending Spoons does business is just as creative as its apps. Instead of starting from scratch, the company focuses on buying digital businesses that have untapped potential and turning them into profitable businesses. This plan, which is often compared to private equity for the app generation, has been a big part of its success. CEO Luca Ferrari says that it means letting others find the right market fit, then buying and improving those products to make them as good as they can be.
The company’s plan to buy other companies picked up speed in 2022 when it bought Evernote, a former Silicon Valley unicorn famous for its note-taking app. Bending Spoons changed Evernote’s backend from a monolithic architecture to a microservices framework, which made the program run much faster. The team released 75 product improvements in a year, which kept users and made more money. After buying Remini, a top AI photo-editing app, and Meetup, a social network with 60 million members, the same kinds of changes happened. Bending Spoons bought Mosaic Group, Hopin’s StreamYard, Issuu, WeTransfer, and Komoot in 2024 alone. They spent more than $1 billion on troubled software companies.
But this aggressive strategy for buying companies has caused some problems. Some people say that Bending Spoons uses a “cigar-butt” investing style, which means they make money by raising prices and laying off workers at the companies they buy. For example, Bending Spoons changed its app to a subscription model and fired the original team after buying FiLMiC in 2022. After buying Mosaic Group and WeTransfer, the company cut its workforce in a similar way, which made people worry about how much it cared about the employees of the companies it bought. Bending Spoons stands by its approach, though, saying that its focus on efficiency and new technology leads to long-term success.
Cultural Excellence and Social Impact
Bending Spoons has made great progress in social responsibility and workplace culture, in addition to its business success. As a way to help public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company made Immuni, Italy’s official contact-tracing app, for free. Even though the app had problems with getting people to use it and with technology, it showed that Bending Spoons cares about doing good in the world. The company also works with groups like the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences to give STEM scholarships to groups that don’t get enough of them. Supercritical also helps the company offset all of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Bending Spoons promotes a culture of “radical simplicity” and independence within the company, giving employees the freedom to take on big tasks early in their careers. The company’s graduate program gives young professionals the chance to work on products worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with some of them in their 20s. Bending Spoons was named one of the best places to work in Italy in 2023. It attracts talent from big tech companies like Google and Apple by offering competitive pay, equity, and benefits like flexible hours and fancy retreats. It was named the Best Workplace in Italy for companies with 50 to 149 employees in 2019 and 2020, which shows how much it cares about its employees.
Reaching New Heights
By 2023, Bending Spoons had 100 million monthly active users and made $380 million in sales. They expected to make $500 million in 2024. The company’s apps, such as Evernote, Meetup, Remini, and Splice, have been downloaded more than 500 million times. A $155 million funding round in 2023, with support from investors like Durable Capital and Baillie Gifford, confirmed its unicorn status and gave the company a value of $2.55 billion. Bending Spoons wants to be the biggest player in the tech world, and rumors of a possible IPO and a failed attempt to buy Vimeo in 2024 show this.
Luca Ferrari, the CEO, says that the company’s success is due to being humble, always learning, and thinking about the long-term effects of their actions. He talks about what he learned from his failed startup and how important it is to stay humble and change your plans based on what is happening in the market. Ferrari’s goals go beyond making money. He wants Bending Spoons’ success to inspire Italian businesspeople to aim higher and help Europe have a strong tech ecosystem.
Problems and the Path Forward
Bending Spoons has had a very quick rise, but it still has problems. Users, especially those on the free tier who feel left out by new paywalls, have criticized its aggressive monetization strategies, such as raising the prices of apps like Evernote and Meetup. The company’s lack of moderation in hostile forum discussions has also caused problems.
Bending Spoons wants to be the best mobile app developer in the world and make $500 million in EBITDA by 2026. The company is in a good position to reach this goal because it has more than 100 digital products, 450 engineers, and a talent for making underperforming assets work better. But it will be important for the company to find a balance between making money and keeping customers happy and doing business in an ethical way.
In conclusion
Bending Spoons went from a dorm room in Copenhagen to a tech giant in Milan. This shows how important it is to be resilient, innovative, and have a strategic vision. The company has changed what it means to be successful in the mobile app industry by buying and improving apps that affect millions of people. People may disagree about how Bending Spoons does things, but there is no denying that it is changing the digital world, one app at a time. Luca Ferrari says, “The moment you think you’re very smart, the chances of making very dumb mistakes go through the roof.” Bending Spoons is on track to keep rising to new heights, showing that what seems impossible is actually possible.
