Bending Spoons has signed a $1.35 billion acquisition of Miro, an AI-powered workspace for project development. Following the ...
What Luca Ferrari said
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Luca Ferrari, CEO of Bending Spoons, discussed the company's acquisition of Miro for $1.3 billion, following its purchase of Airtable in August. He argued that both are modern, growing businesses, and that Bending Spoons benefits from favorable market conditions: private equity firms need to sell assets but lack buying capital, making the balance of supply and demand favorable to buyers. Ferrari said SaaS valuations are now reasonable, having been irrationally high before, and that AI has forced investors to reassess. He acknowledged some SaaS businesses face existential AI risk but believes Bending Spoons can integrate and improve them. He rejected waiting for better opportunities, citing unpredictable macro trends. On Europe, he said doing business there is less appealing than in the US. He emphasized Bending Spoons focuses on operational excellence, not financial engineering, and that higher interest rates lower valuations, benefiting acquirers. He sees Airtable and Miro as pieces of a broader enterprise platform, alongside Vimeo.
Key takeaways
Bending Spoons is acquiring Miro for $1.3 billion, its second major software deal in two months after Airtable.
Ferrari said SaaS valuations are now reasonable, having been irrationally high before, and AI forced investors to reassess.
He argued private equity firms need to sell assets but lack buying capital, favoring buyers like Bending Spoons.
Ferrari said Bending Spoons bets on operational excellence, not financial engineering, and does better when interest rates are higher.
He sees Airtable and Miro as pieces of a broader enterprise platform, with Vimeo and more acquisitions to come.
0:29What is that telling us about the SaaS fears that were in the markets earlier this year?
1:48And if we look at Miro, 600 million in annual recurring revenue, how much faith do you have in that moat and that the 600 million that is there today will be there in future and growing?
4:14Is it not a better opportunity just to wait at the moment?
5:45How far behind are we, and what does that mean in terms of opportunities?
6:27That whole change in dynamic, what is it doing to your view of companies and whether you can spend the money on capex, whether you need the returns to flow through much quicker than you might have had, say, even a couple of years back?
7:51How do you see the competitive threat of a company like that that is already monetizing AI and then can redeploy that money into areas where you might want to be more competitive?
Bending Spoons has announced it will buy Miro, the collaboration tool startup, in a deal worth $1.3 billion. It comes after the Italian company, which has built a reputation for acquiring and restructuring businesses, bought Airtable earlier in August as well as a number of other businesses over the past few years. Luca Ferrari joins us, the CEO of Bending Spoons. Luca, welcome. Great to see you again.
Your company has earned quite a reputation in recent years for hoovering up some of these so-called legacy businesses. Not that old in reality for tech companies, a little bit of age on them. This is the second major software deal you've done in two months. What is that telling us about the SaaS fears that were in the markets earlier this year?
Yeah, first of all, I would say both Airtable and Miro are absolutely modern, growing businesses. So it's not that we only buy legacy brands. I think we're now, as a serial acquirer, as a technology company, enjoying some good tailwinds with AI advancing and the uncertainty and risks it brings. A company like Bending Spoons tends to gain by having a more appealing set of potential targets for sure. And additionally, you know, typically, historically, a key acquirer of businesses of this kind, which is private equity, they, as far as I can tell, have a lot of assets they actually need to sell, but there's not a lot of money from private equity ready to buy the assets. So the balance of demand and supply is more favorable to a buyer. Hence, yeah, as Bending Spoons, we like the moment for sure.
Yeah, the pushback there, I think, was really interesting about what type of company it is because I've been having lots of conversations even about dot-com companies that were considered quite old but now new again, new economy businesses because of the reinvention thanks to AI. But one of the fears, and this is what I want to get into, there were concerns about recurring revenues from software companies. That's where SaaS Armageddon really took hold earlier in the year. And if we look at Miro, 600 million in annual recurring revenue, how much faith do you have in that moat and that the 600 million that is there today will be there in future and growing?
So, well, I can't talk too much about Miro, the acquisition hasn't closed, but I can make more general points about the leap of faith you're taking. Yeah, so look, I think the valuations for SaaS businesses that we see prevalent in the market now are actually reasonable. And I would argue they were exceptionally high in my view, irrationally high before and for a long time. You couldn't, in my view, justify those valuations based on any reasonable projection of cash flows. It was a speculative way of acquiring and investing in those businesses. I think as AI advanced, it forced a lot of investors to go back to their spreadsheets and really question whether those numbers held up to scrutiny. I think the answer was often no because the future is uncertain. I actually think that some of these businesses are extremely exposed to AI, potentially in an existential way. Many of these businesses have a certain level of risk which is, I believe, quite manageable, especially once they're integrated into our platform as we bring our technologies and our expertise to bear. I believe we can actually take advantage of AI advances as opposed to being on the losing end of it. And then there is a few, and those are few and far between, who are almost completely insulated from disruption from AI. So I think generally speaking, being concerned about what AI can do to really any industry, to be honest, not just SaaS. I just think people are sometimes a bit simplistic in saying AI is bits, so businesses that are bits are at risk. But I think you could make pretty credible claims that other industries are also going to be shaken up. These are reasonable concerns, but I think a lot of these businesses have plenty of value, serve customers really well, and have most other scale economies or network economies we can protect.
You buy throughout the cycle. You don't just wait for the down tick. But I can't help thinking that a lot of people are worried about the capex levels, are worried about the valuation levels, and I actually think there's going to be some absolutely fantastic opportunities to just hold your horses at the moment and wait for the inevitable situation where we see the wheat from the chaff being worked out, who those companies that make it and those that are going to perhaps suffer on the back of the changes we're seeing. Is it not a better opportunity just to wait at the moment?
So we have a history of returns, and so we know what we can on average expect over time. And we only make investments where the expected returns clear that hurdle, which our recent acquisitions do to the best of our knowledge and in our expectations. We don't think it would be wise to wait for a hypothetical future where opportunities are even better because who knows. I mean, I believe that if there's one thing that humans have been terrible at predicting, it's, let's call it, macroeconomic trends, what happens broadly in the future.
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Ferrari, L. (2026, September 11). BENDING SPOONS acquires Miro for $1.35 billion | Exclusive CNBC interview with Luca Ferrari [Interview transcript]. Class CNBC. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1340791/
MLA
Luca Ferrari. "BENDING SPOONS acquires Miro for $1.35 billion | Exclusive CNBC interview with Luca Ferrari." Class CNBC, 11 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1340791/.
BibTeX
@misc{ferrari2026_1340791,
author = {Luca Ferrari},
title = {BENDING SPOONS acquires Miro for $1.35 billion | Exclusive CNBC interview with Luca Ferrari},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Class CNBC. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1340791/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
