Bending Spoons' 1,000-Target Shopping List Tests a New Software Math

Bending Spoons has identified more than 1,000 software companies it could buy, and those targets generated nearly $400 billion in estimated combined revenue in 2025. The Milan-based company disclosed the figure in its IPO prospectus. The list covers the whole strategy: buy proven products, cut costs, and use the profits to buy more.

The portfolio already includes Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, AOL, and Eventbrite. The deals have not slowed since the Nasdaq debut in July. Bending Spoons completed acquisitions of Airtable and Miro after listing. In October, Berkshire Hathaway invested another $330 million and lifted its stake to 4%.

The model is attracting attention across the software industry at a moment when AI is cutting the cost of building and maintaining products. The results so far look strong on paper. The job cuts look just as large.

Why does buying old software make financial sense?

Building a software business from scratch is expensive and uncertain. A company can spend years building a product and persuading customers to pay, with no guarantee of success. Buying an established business 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," says Vince Molinari, founder and CEO of Fintech Media Group.

An acquired product arrives with customers, revenue, brand recognition, and distribution. Molinari argues retention matters more than the top line.

"Revenue tells you what customers paid yesterday. Retention helps tell you whether they'll still be paying tomorrow," he tells Fast Company.

The second-quarter numbers show the appeal. Revenue rose 126% year over year to $704 million. Operating income climbed 139% to $240 million. Strip out the revenue added by acquisitions, though, and growth was just 3%. The company still grows mainly by writing checks.

"The next billion-dollar opportunity doesn't necessarily start with the next big idea," says 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 is the cost of making software more profitable?

Bending Spoons is unusually willing to restructure what it buys. Its IPO filing disclosed that AOL, Eventbrite, and Vimeo brought roughly 1,830 full-time-equivalent employees into the company. Bending Spoons planned to retain only a few hundred after restructuring.

Vimeo shows what the company believes the approach delivers. In the second quarter, Bending Spoons reported more than 30 product improvements at Vimeo and a roughly 90% reduction in system-stability incidents versus pre-acquisition levels. Uploads and searches became at least 30% faster, according to the company.

Those are company-reported figures. Speed and reliability do not reveal how customers feel about pricing, support, or product direction.

Matteo Danieli, cofounder and VP of product, told Fast Company that acquisition-driven growth frees his teams from chasing growth targets. "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 duplicated expenses carries its own risk. Deep cuts can drain the experienced staff who know how to maintain 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 says.

How does AI change the economics?

Bending Spoons is betting that AI lets it run bigger portfolios with smaller teams. Its own prospectus quantifies the shift. By the end of March 2026, AI had authored or coauthored more than 90% of software-code changes submitted for review, up from less than 10% a year earlier. Engineers still review and decide. But the adoption curve is steep.

"AI is rapidly reducing the cost of developing, maintaining, and improving software," says Mohamed Mohamed, founder and CEO of 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, host of the Silicon Valley Girl podcast, sees a parallel in the creator economy. She points to Electrify Video Partners' majority investment in Veritasium, the science channel founded by Derek Muller, where Muller kept an ownership stake and continues 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 says.

The parallel has limits. Muller remains central to Veritasium. Bending Spoons usually replaces much of the workforce it acquires.

Can Bending Spoons keep its advantage?

The same AI tools that make its targets cheaper to run also make them cheaper to compete against. Smaller teams can now build products that once required large resources, forcing incumbents to give customers reasons to stay.

"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 says.

Bending Spoons holds real advantages: acquisition experience, financing access, and an expanding technical operation. But acquisitions require capital, and the company ended June with approximately $4.09 billion in net debt.

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

Finding targets will not be the problem; the 1,000-name list takes care of that. Keeping the loyalty of customers acquired along with the businesses will. "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," Mogilko says. The pace of acquisitions suggests Bending Spoons will test that question at scale.