Bending Spoons, the Italian company that buys well-known but slowing software brands and rebuilds them, has won fresh backing from Berkshire Hathaway, less than four months after listing on Nasdaq, CNBC reported.
Berkshire agreed on October 14 to buy 10 million newly issued Bending Spoons shares at US$33 each in a US$330 million private placement, according to The Next Web and TheStreet. Together with the US$600 million it invested at the company’s July IPO, the deal lifts Berkshire’s holding to about 4%. The placement remains subject to customary closing conditions.
Investors cheered the news. The shares closed 41% higher at US$53.46 on the day of the announcement, The Next Web reported, well above the US$29 IPO price cited by TheStreet, which put the company’s market value at about US$18 billion.
A buy-and-fix model
Led by co-founder and chief executive Luca Ferrari, the Milan-based group targets established digital products that their previous owners have let drift, then reworks how they operate. Its portfolio includes AOL, Vimeo, Evernote, Eventbrite, WeTransfer and Airtable, and it has also signed a deal for collaboration platform Miro.
The approach often involves deep restructuring. Earlier this month the company said much of Airtable’s pre-acquisition team would leave with separation packages, The Next Web reported.
The AOL deal shows the playbook. Bending Spoons agreed in October 2025 to buy the web portal and email service from Yahoo, backed by a US$2.8 billion debt financing package to fund that purchase and future deals, Content+Technology reported at the time. Ferrari then described AOL as having untapped potential, noting it had around 8 million daily and 30 million monthly active users, and said Bending Spoons had never sold a business it acquired.
Growth through acquisition
The numbers show how much of the growth comes from buying. According to TheStreet, second-quarter 2026 revenue more than doubled to US$704 million, with an adjusted operating margin of 54%, but organic sales rose only 3%. The company has spent nearly US$6 billion on 15 acquisitions since early 2023, and net debt stood at US$4.1 billion.
Ferrari has called Berkshire a longstanding inspiration, while co-founder Francesco Patarnello said the new money gives the company more flexibility for acquisitions. Mizuho described the investment as another vote of confidence in the model.
What’s next
The key test is whether Bending Spoons can keep earning high returns as its deals get bigger, starting with Airtable and Miro. With Berkshire now among its larger shareholders and fresh capital in hand, the company has said its acquisition pipeline remains strong.
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