Bending Spoons Buys Another One: Italian conglomerate books Eventbrite for $500M
For years, there’s been one place where big-name tech products could enjoy a second life, albeit without most or all of the people that got them there: Bending Spoons.
The Italian company, which is valued at $11B and reports 300M+ monthly active users, acquired Eventbrite for $500M this week.
If you’re unfamiliar, Bending Spoons has an M&A playbook:
Identify a product with a fair amount of users but an ebbing valuation.
Buy it for the IP and product, not the team.
Initiate big layoffs.
Tweak the product’s UX / increase prices (often by changing paid tier structures).
Hold on as revenue increases (which differentiates it from private equity buyers).
So what companies has it purchased? Quite a few, including:
AI photo-enhancing app Remini
Smartphone video app FiLMiC
Evernote, a note-taking and organization app
Meeting and group organization platform Meetup
Mosaic Group (makers of iTranslate, RoboKiller, PDF Hero, and other apps)
Livestream recording tool StreamYard
Issuu, a digital publishing platform
WeTransfer, a file-sharing service
Video streaming platform Brightcove
Komoot, an app for planning outdoor adventures
Time-tracking tool Harvest
Mileage tracking app MileIQ
It has also announced acquisitions of:
Video hosting site Vimeo
AOL—yes, that AOL
What other well-known products are out there waiting for the Bending Spoons treatment? Or: Which product above would you like back to its pre-Bending Spoons version?
Replies
Triforce Todos
I wonder how many of these products would have succeeded differently if the original teams had stayed on?
@abod_rehman My hunch: They may have succeeded in improving the products but not making them more financially lucrative. It's hard to kill your own darlings; easier for someone else to do it.
I was at StreamYard when it got acquired. Frustratingly StreamYard itself was doing well, it was our parent company Hopin that was tanking. StreamYard's founders actually tried to buy it back, but their bid was leveraged to get the bigger buyout from Bending Spoons. It was a real shame as all the employees at StreamYard LOVED the business and our customers. Now it's a pretty soul-less overpriced service.