What is Bending Spoons?

The 2026 global tech IPO market has been overwhelmingly dominated by public listings from artificial intelligence companies and hardware firms across all niches this year. But today brings a distinctly rare milestone: a newly launched public offering from a standalone software company.

This IPO belongs to Italian technology firm Bending Spoons S.p.A. Despite its European roots, the company owns a long list of well-known American consumer tech brands, including the popular video-sharing platform Vimeo, as well as the remaining operations of legacy internet service provider America Online.

Here’s everything you need to know about Bending Spoons’ upcoming public listing.

What is Bending Spoons?

Bending Spoons was founded 13 years ago in 2013, and the company currently keeps its global headquarters in Milan, Italy. The most accurate way to describe its business model is a hybrid of a traditional tech software company and a private equity firm.

Just like private equity groups, Bending Spoons acquires struggling companies — in its case, all of its targets are software-focused businesses — with the core goal of turning them around to boost profitability. But it deviates sharply from standard private equity strategy in its long-term goals: Bending Spoons does not buy companies only to flip them for a quick profit later, nor does it break up acquired firms to sell off individual assets to the highest bidder.

Instead, Bending Spoons leverages its in-house software engineering expertise to upgrade the products and services of the brands it acquires. It focuses on turning these purchased businesses into sustainable, long-term operations, growing their overall earnings. Bending Spoons then reinvests those profits to acquire more distressed software companies, continuing its cycle of scalable growth.

Per the company’s latest pre-IPO disclosures, as of March 2026, Bending Spoons’ full portfolio of brands counts more than 500 million monthly active users globally, and those businesses collectively boast more than 9 million monthly paying subscribers.