From App Flipping to Tech Empire: The Remarkable Rise of Luca Ferrari and Bending Spoons

In 2014, Luca Ferrari and three friends from Milan pooled together $10,000 to purchase a simple keyboard personalization app. This modest investment marked the beginning of what would become one of technology’s most remarkable success stories. Ten years later, their company, Bending Spoons—named after an iconic scene in “The Matrix”—has transformed into a global tech powerhouse valued at over $11 billion following its latest funding round. This extraordinary growth has catapulted Ferrari into billionaire status, with Forbes estimating his personal stake to be worth approximately $1.4 billion. His cofounders Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Francesco Patarnello haven’t done badly either, each holding stakes valued at around $1.3 billion according to data from the Italian Business Register.

The company’s meteoric rise has been fueled by a recent $270 million funding round from prestigious investors including T. Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, and Fidelity. Additionally, a $440 million secondary share sale by existing shareholders further demonstrates investor confidence in Bending Spoons’ business model. While the company declined to comment specifically on the founders’ stakes or whether any of them participated in the secondary transaction, they did confirm that the fresh capital would support future acquisitions and investments in their proprietary technology and artificial intelligence capabilities. This latest valuation represents a remarkable leap from the $2.8 billion valuation the company commanded earlier in 2024, cementing Bending Spoons as one of Italy’s most valuable private companies.

The explosive growth in Bending Spoons’ valuation follows an aggressive acquisition strategy that has seen the company complete a series of high-profile deals. In just the past year, they’ve acquired video hosting tool Brightcove, fitness app Komoot, and completed a $1.38 billion take-private transaction for the Nasdaq-listed video platform Vimeo. However, the company’s most ambitious move came recently with the acquisition of internet pioneer AOL from private equity giant Apollo Global Management. While the financial terms weren’t disclosed, Bending Spoons announced it had secured $2.8 billion in debt financing to fund this acquisition and future transactions. These bold moves are paying off—according to Ferrari, the company is on track to generate an impressive $1.2 billion in revenue this year, highlighting the effectiveness of their acquisition-driven growth strategy.

At its core, Bending Spoons operates with a clear but flexible strategy that defies conventional industry categorization. “Our strategy is very clear and sharp but it doesn’t include any bias to any particular segment,” explains Ferrari. The company identifies digital products with healthy revenue streams but stalled growth potential, then acquires them using debt financing. Their approach to these acquisitions varies—in some cases, like with Evernote, they’ve implemented cost-cutting measures reminiscent of private equity tactics, including staff reductions and price increases. However, Bending Spoons maintains that they’ve also made substantial investments to revitalize and expand other acquired properties, such as Meetup. This balanced approach of strategic streamlining and targeted growth investment has proven highly effective in maximizing the value of their diverse portfolio of digital assets.

While Bending Spoons’ business model has drawn comparisons to private equity funds and software consolidators like Canada’s Constellation Software, early investor Peter Singlehurst of Baillie Gifford argues that these labels don’t accurately capture the company’s unique approach. “They own and operate digital applications and are great at growing them very profitably because of the level of talent in the organization,” Singlehurst told Forbes. This talent-driven approach has allowed Bending Spoons to stand out in Italy’s relatively small startup ecosystem. The company’s $11 billion valuation would secure it a place on the FTSE MIB, the index of the 40 largest and most liquid companies traded on the Milan Stock Exchange, if it were publicly listed. This achievement is particularly noteworthy given that only a handful of Italian startups have achieved unicorn status, including payments provider Satispay, buy-now-pay-later service Scalapay, and insurance company Prima, which was recently acquired by European insurance giant Axa for $1 billion.

Despite the company’s extraordinary evolution over the past decade, Ferrari maintains that the fundamental principles that guided their first $10,000 app acquisition remain at the heart of Bending Spoons’ operations today. While that original keyboard personalization app has long since vanished from app stores, the core business philosophy persists. As Ferrari reflects, “We just do it in a more sophisticated way and at a much larger scale today.” This combination of strategic consistency and operational evolution has enabled Bending Spoons to transform from a small Milan startup into a global digital empire. As they continue their expansion with the backing of major investors and substantial debt facilities, the four friends who started with a modest app acquisition in 2014 now stand at the helm of one of technology’s most fascinating success stories—a testament to their vision, adaptability, and entrepreneurial spirit in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.