Bending Spoons filed a Form F-1 with the SEC on June 8 for a Nasdaq IPO under the ticker BSP, targeting a valuation of roughly $20 billion [1]. The Milan-based company's Q1 2026 revenue hit $601 million, up from $259 million a year earlier [2]. Net income was $27.5 million. CEO Luca Ferrari claims 1,000 acquisition targets identified [3]. The company owns AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite, WeTransfer, Evernote, Meetup, Brightcove, and StreamYard [1].

The story is not the filing. It is the model. Bending Spoons operates more like a private equity firm than a software company. It acquires established but underperforming digital platforms, restructures them aggressively, and manages them as a unified portfolio at scale [4]. Since 2022, the company has completed more than 50 acquisitions. Monthly active users grew to 500 million from 111 million in December 2023 [2]. Paying customers number 10 million, including many Fortune 500 companies [4].

The $20 billion target represents an 80 percent jump in valuation from the company's last funding round in October 2025, when it raised $710 million at an $11 billion valuation [4]. Ferrari told Reuters in November that adjusted EBITDA was expected to reach $1.4 billion in 2026, up from $700 million in 2025 — a doubling driven by recent acquisitions [3].

The question is whether the numbers justify the price. If trailing twelve-month revenue reached $1.6 billion as of March 31, 2026 [2], a $20 billion valuation implies a price-to-sales ratio of roughly 12.5x. That is a tech-company multiple for a portfolio of aging internet brands. The "1,000 digital businesses" target list is the giveaway — this is not innovation, it is consolidation.

The juxtaposition with the KOSPI crash is the structural frame. One market punishes concentration — Korea's two-stock index collapsed 8 percent on AI concentration risk [3]. Another rewards it — Bending Spoons buying everything. The internet's late-consolidation phase is when the growth story ends and the extraction story begins.

Ferrari has been signaling a US listing for over a year, citing higher valuations on American exchanges [4]. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Allen & Co, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, and Jefferies are organizing the deal [3]. The IPO market is regaining traction after a brief slowdown in March, and Bending Spoons is timing its entry accordingly.

The structural question: is this a technology company that builds products, or a financial engineering operation that buys them? The name — inspired by the Matrix's spoon-bending scene — suggests the latter. You do not bend spoons with code. You bend them with money.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco