After $18B IPO, Bending Spoons founder says success comes from minimizing luck

Bending Spoons itself started getting more support over the years. Valued at $11 billion in a private equity round before its IPO, it had both VC firms and VIPs on its cap table, including big names from tech and entertainment. In its earlier years, however, VCs struggled to understand its approach. “We’ve got a lot of ‘you’re crazy’ reactions throughout the years,” Danieli recalled. 

That’s also captured by the company’s tagline, “Impossible. Maybe.”

Focusing on talent was also one of the lessons that Bending Spoons’ founders learned from their Evertale days, and hiring became a focus. The co-founder Ferrari “invested the best part of the first two or three years working on culture and hiring processes. We believe we now excel at spotting talent, especially when young and when they don’t have a great track record yet.”

The numbers seem to agree. According to its SEC filing, “in part helped by progress in AI, revenue per full-time equivalent Spooner increased from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025, and was $0.97 million in Q1 2026.”

This also explains why Bending Spoons took the unusual decision of bringing the whole company to New York to celebrate its listing. “It’s one more tool for us to access the liquidity that we need to fuel our acquisitive strategy, but we also thought that for one day it would be the right thing to take it all in and enjoy the moment with all our colleagues,” Danieli said. 

That’s just one day, though. After that, Bending Spoons will go back to buying companies — and take advantage of slashed SaaS valuations it has itself managed to escape, according to Danieli. “From a buyer’s perspective and as a company that grows through acquisitions, that’s actually a great opportunity and moment to deploy capital.”