When it comes to tech IPOs in 2026, it’s largely been a year of AI companies and other hardware firms of various stripes going public. But today marks a relatively rare occurrence: a software company public offering.
That IPO is for the Italian tech firm Bending Spoons S.p.A. Yet despite its European roots, the company owns several well-known American brands, including the video-sharing website Vimeo and what remains of the legacy internet service provider, America Online. Here’s what you need to know about Bending Spoons’ IPO.
What is Bending Spoons?
Bending Spoons was founded 13 years ago in 2013. The company is currently based in Milan, Italy. The most apt way to describe Bending Spoons is as a traditional tech software company crossed with a private equity firm.
Like a private equity firm, Bending Spoons buys up struggling companies—in its case, all software companies—in hopes of making them more profitable. But unlike a private equity firm, Bending Spoons’ intention is not to flip the companies it buys for a profit in the future, or to break them up and sell off their parts to the highest bidder.
Instead, Bending Spoons uses its software engineering expertise to improve the products and offerings of the software companies it buys, making them sustainable businesses and increasing those companies’ earnings, which Bending Spoons then uses to scoop up more distressed software companies.
Bending Spoons says that as of March 2026, it has over 500 million monthly active users across its portfolio of companies, and those companies have more than 9 million monthly paying subscribers.
What companies does Bending Spoons own?
Bending Spoons now owns myriad software brands. Some of the most prominent are:
- Evernote (acquired in 2023)
- Meetup (2024)
- WeTransfer (2024)
- Brightcove (2025)
- Vimeo (2025)
- AOL (2026)
- Eventbrite (2026)
When is Bending Spoons’ IPO?
Bending Spoons’ initial public offering is today, Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
What is Bending Spoons’ stock ticker?
Bending Spoons’ shares will trade under the stock ticker “BSP.”
What market will Bending Spoons’ shares trade on?
Bending Spoons’ shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of BSP?
When Bending Spoons announced the launch of its IPO on June 23, the company initially said it expected its IPO price to be between $26.00 and $28.00 per share.
However, the company’s final IPO price was $29.00 per share.
The higher-than-expected share price suggests there was more interest in Bending Spoons’ IPO than the company and its underwriters initially expected.
How many BSP shares are available in its IPO?
For its IPO, a total of 57,971,015 ordinary shares were made available. The majority of those shares—34,398,640 of them—were offered directly by Bending Spoons. The final 23,572,375 shares were offered by its existing private shareholders.
How much did Bending Spoons raise in its IPO?
It should be noted that Bending Spoons received proceeds only from the roughly 34.4 million shares it sold directly. The company received no proceeds from the roughly 23.5 million shares sold by its existing private shareholders.
In total, the IPO raised about $1.68 billion, with the company’s direct share sale raising about $1 billion of that total, and the private sellers raising about $680 million.
How much is Bending Spoons worth?
At its IPO price of $29 per share, Bending Spoons is now valued at roughly $18.4 billion, according to Reuters.