What motivates us is trying to build an exceptional company. Ideally, the goal is to build one of the most successful companies of our generation globally.
In 2025 I interviewed Luca Ferrari twice. He is the co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, now worth over $11 billion, the first Italian decacorn. Bending Spoons acquires digital products, radically improves them, and keeps them long-term – a mix of private equity and Google. Their portfolio includes WeTransfer, Remini, and Evernote. In 2025 they made six mega-acquisitions including Vimeo for $1.38 billion and Bright for $500 million. In this live episode we discuss their M&A strategy, how they improve businesses, and attract global talent.
We have built extremely sought-after jobs. This year alone we received about 800,000 applications.
I'm Ines Mac. This is Midaet. I'll take you inside Bending Spoons to discover the secrets behind one of Italy's greatest success stories.
Luca, welcome back. 2025 was phenomenal. How did you experience it personally and what was your highlight?
It was a good year objectively. We're proud of progress, but I don't dwell on results. Our focus is on the future; we're laying foundations for 2030. If you fixate on past wins, you start a decline, especially in a competitive market.
So can you never be satisfied as an entrepreneur?
You can, but if that's your tendency, it kills your results. It's a blessing and a curse.
Your growth through acquisitions is impressive: Brightcove, Harvest, Commut, MyQ, Vimeo, AOL, Eventbrite. Some say you're not an innovative startup but a corporate buying existing businesses. What's your response and the rationale behind your M&A?
But that just buys existing businesses. How do you answer critics, and what drives your M&A strategy?
What motivates us is building an exceptional company. Whether people call us a scale-up or something else doesn't matter. Innovation can mean many things. We rarely launch new brands; we transform acquired products. For example, Remini had one AI feature when we bought it; now it's the world's number one image generation app with over 100 million active users, introducing generative AI features first in 2023. Evernote's upcoming version 11 will be its biggest update in a decade, with AI features developed with OpenAI. We've also invested over €100 million in R&D on internal tools. Our HR team has final authority on hiring and firing – that's unique. We innovate where it brings utility, not just for recognition.
Thanks for the explanation and for answering the online critics.
It's not about being a hater. People think innovation must mean creating something new, but you can innovate in many ways. Google acquired YouTube, Android, Maps and then built phenomenal products on top. Having launched from zero doesn't define innovativeness.
When you look at a company, what makes you say 'this is for Bending Spoons'?
Three criteria. First, size – we take a hands-on approach and transform companies thoroughly, so we prefer a few large acquisitions per year, 2-5 max, each significant. Second, predictability of future trajectory – we need confidence in where the business is going, using historical data over decades on millions of users to model scenarios. Third, how much we think we can improve it – we need to believe we can make a step change in quality. If not, we can't offer an attractive price.
What makes you reject a potential acquisition despite good numbers?
For ethical reasons we avoid businesses that are questionable, like gambling. We also reject if too small, unpredictable, or if we can't add significant value. That's it.
Let's go deeper on Eventbrite, your last acquisition. What attracted you, who approached who, how did negotiations go?
We approached them in the second half of this year. I knew the founder and CEO Giulia earlier but we had never discussed a transaction. Applying our three criteria: Eventbrite has about $300 million revenue and nearly 100 million active users – a significant addition. It's resilient with a strong brand in mid-size events. Strong network effects make it hard to replicate. With 20 years of data, we have material for predictive models. We see big opportunities to improve the product, especially for organizers, with automated tools, better pricing suggestions, and improving retention and monetization. We also aim to streamline the organization and create agile teams with fewer management layers. Of course, these are hypotheses until we are fully inside.
How do you extract more value than the company could on its own? What's your magic touch?
We have several competitive advantages. First, access to talent – we receive about 800,000 applications yearly, so we can bring transformative talent to acquired firms. Second, proprietary technologies built over time, amortized across multiple businesses, unlike a single company that might not prioritize long-term investment. Third, we maintain a shared pool of R&D, designers, engineers, and product managers. We can quickly allocate large, strong teams to capture opportunities and then redeploy them. A single-product company would take months to scale up and then face friction downsizing. Additionally, our scale gives us better leverage with vendors like cloud providers.
So a recap: talent, agility, and shared technology investment. What are your top KPIs after an acquisition to track success?
Financially we use IRR, internal rate of return, tracking performance against pre-acquisition projections. Operationally, we monitor customer retention as a key quantitative indicator. Each business has specific metrics too, but those are the high-level ones.
Does the 80/20 rule apply in your portfolio? How do you allocate resources?
Our top ten businesses contribute about 75% of revenue. We sometimes keep smaller products if they require little maintenance and customers are happy. But we have shut down many that were too small and cost time. Over time, the long tail tends to shrink as we focus on larger acquisitions.
How do you stay updated on new technologies, especially as CEO? You oversee AI advancements.
You can't stay current on everything. We focus on areas that matter most, like AI. I rely on my team and delegate. It's about prioritizing and trusting experts.
When you are surrounded by very talented people, each an expert in their field, it's an efficient way to absorb knowledge because they have more time and prior knowledge to filter noise. You don't learn as well as by doing, but you learn quickly. We distribute decision-making across our businesses, each with its own management team. I don't need to know or decide everything—that would be demotivating. We divide responsibilities among talented, responsible people. If a technological evolution is critical for a business, the people working on it will be more updated.
You mentioned you receive 800,000 applications a year. I discovered that in a podcast. Do you know who else receives that many? Your first employer, McKinsey?
McKinsey is not my first employer. I worked as a dishwasher in Copenhagen. McKinsey receives 800,000 applications, a 100-year-old recognized company. It's incredible you attract so many people. Talent is key. At Bending Spoons you have to give 100% every day; the acceptance rate is 0.004%—one in 3000.
How do you identify the best talents with so many applications? Can you give us an idea of the recruiting process?
'Best talents' is subjective. We look for 'smart people who care'—brilliant, fast learners who care deeply and want to be the best. We have a framework of 26 dimensions. Identifying those traits is difficult. We have a team of recruiters, engineers, and data scientists who find predictive signals from resumes and tests. We constantly study correlations with performance to refine our models.
