All right, we're back with another evaluation corner, and Professor Virgi, this week we're covering Bending Spoons.
Bit of an unusual valuation corner. One, it's a this is a public company that recently IPO'd. They are an Italian company. And then three, they're not like a fancy AI defense technology company. They're just a straight down the middle of the fairway software company that is dealing with a bunch of brands you'll you'll recognize. It's essentially our father's SaaS company. And all they do is they just acquire and restructure and then they operate the a large portfolio of of web brands. It's an interesting company. I think they're building a really interesting business. My take on it is just that it's a great business but at a pretty full price. So, I think the valuation is I'm having a hard time getting to a valuation that the public market puts on it, but you know, maybe you can talk me into or out of it or folks have comments in the and on on YouTube, I'd love to hear what you think about the valuation.
Here's the basic story. They're at a $28 billion valuation today. They they IPO'd a little bit south of that. They traded up, so they're doing well in the public market. They have had some ups and downs. They're at about 2.4 billion in revenue as of Q1 of '26 and just do that do that run rate. So, it's about a 10x revenue multiple. Back in October 2025, they were valued at 14 billion. That was around with some crossover leads, Rowe Price and Fidelity. And as far as I can tell, they've never really raised money from venture capital ever. Their prior round is February 2024 at about a $3 billion valuation. That was private equity leads. A lot of this has been bootstrapped. So, the company has been essentially been financed by their their their early investors.
There's CEO Luca Ferrari. No relation to Enzo Ferrari or the Ferrari family that that I know of. Or he did part of his college stint in Denmark, hence the hence the the the the Danish flag. He's an interesting guy. He did a brief stint at McKinsey & Company. You know, all all these a interesting signal if you see someone who's a former consultant. And then this next thing was to go and co-found a company and and operate it. But it was an interesting company. It was like a note-taking startup called Evertale and it failed. So with that on his resume, Dave, would you fund would you fund somebody with that resume?
I don't know. I'm used to funding people with unusual backgrounds, but that doesn't seem like a traditional venture investor tech founder background.
No, it doesn't and I don't think he was very successful at that point in raising VC money, but he did pivot Evertale into Bending Spoons and what he was able to do is to start to make acquisitions over the last couple years. They've spent about $6 billion in acquisitions over those years. So Evernote, WeTransfer, companies like AOL, Eventbrite, like some very famous internet names you going you know, going back many years. Some of them good businesses, some all of them kind of challenged not growing very well. Some of them challenged with profitability. He settled it all in cash up until earlier this year. And so he's put together a portfolio that you know, it looks kind of interesting.
One observation is he spent $6 billion on the acquisitions and yet the company's trading at $28 billion in the market. So I'm I'm already wondering like how does the multiple of book value how does the multiple of acquisition value justify itself? We have the same conversation about US retail VCs like Fundrise and the XYZ. Interesting portfolio of businesses trading at two, three, four, five times book value. And so I'm just I'm trying to reconcile in my head how that how that works. So I just went and did a a kind of a sum of parts and said, what do I think this company is really worth? Let me just set aside my bias that you know, that it should trade near book. Let me start with AOL and Vimeo and Eventbrite and just go through their disclosures and their Q1 performance and put a valuation multiple on each of these. Do a sum of parts for the whole thing and see if I value to the segments, what does it look like?
So, AOL, based on the numbers that I'm seeing, it's you can put a 5 and 1/2 X revenue in this, you know, on the on the on the business. Vimeo, three times revenue. Eventbrite, 2.7 times revenue. Brightcove, probably would be more like 1X revenue. Traktive, I didn't really know how to value it. I just left that at cost. And then there's a balance of it as a core portfolio where I just said, this is the 20 times EBITDA. I could be totally wrong. I encourage all of our listeners to go and redo the valuations based on what you think and why. But I was coming up with like a $17 billion enterprise value. Take out the debt of 2.7 at the end of last quarter. That's an equity value of 14.5. That's like 21 to 22 bucks a share. I don't you know, that that is way off for where the current market is right now.
They're trading at north of 40 bucks as of as of today. It just seems like an expensive valuation. And that's kind of where That is kind of where I left it at the time of the IPO and I thought, I'm not sure this company what the what the market is pricing it at. And then they went out and they bought Airtable last week. They were able to demonstrate something that I didn't I didn't really understand how they pulled this off, but now I'm rethinking the valuation. So, if they can do this with Airtable, what did they do? They acquired a decent profitable business. Airtable's 480 million in revenue. They're growing 20% year over year. They are profitable. EBITDA margins of about 20%. They have their fans. Like they have half a million customers and the customers generally are happy. They're being disrupted by AI, but they do have a good installed base of SMBs. And and then this they it's a company that's suffering, I think, you know, they've been in the market for a while. There's some founder fatigue. The valuation's been reset from their $11 billion valuation in 2021. The secondary market had them more at like 4 billion a year ago or even a few months ago. And Ben Silbermann got them at 2.25 billion. And there's a billion of cash on the balance sheet. So, I'm thinking, well, if I'm if I'm trading at 10 times value in the market and I can acquire a company like Airtable at 3x revenues, well, I'd do that all day.
Is it a good outcome for Airtable? I think it's a good outcome for Airtable. Like they had done a series A, a series B, and a series C prior to 2019. All those investors are in the money. They did a series B where I think those preferred investors will just get their 1x back and that's about it. The only people who suffered are the people who got in at the series E in 2021. The one thing that didn't get talked about, by the way, with the Airtail Airtable acquisition was that they there is an AI business to Airtable that's growing. It's interesting but not that big in the context of the business. It did It did seem like they spun it off into a separate business and and the founders kind of got to keep the best part of the business. And the investors who sold may get a kicker down the road with some additional value from this. So, it isn't It's an interesting acquisition. It does sort of demonstrate though that, you know, there are a lot of companies out there, these pre-AI SaaS companies, that you can probably pick up at three or four times revenue, profitable, but if Bending Spoons can add some operational excellence to the business, to merge it with other assets, to take out some of the cost, to take an active management in the in the in the running of the business, they actually could be quite accretive. I don't know that I would pay 10 times revenue for Bending Spoons right now. I still think they're a little bit richly valued. I guess the question is, can they deploy Can they continue to pick up assets like Airtable or other interesting SaaS businesses and add value? If they can, you know, maybe the valuation works out. Airtable was definitely a surprise, the fact of that that they got such a good deal. If you go and do that, you know, if they can continue to do that, actually this could be a a really great business for for this company.
Well, I think there's still going to be a number of companies which need some kind of workout solution where, you know, those valuations are still being held at least on paper at, you know, ZIRP era 2021 valuations. Even here, the secondary trading value of Airtable was almost twice what it was actually paid for. I think people need to, you know, run through the tape, finish out whatever metaphor you think is appropriate here, but they need to get at least one X back on their investments or close out those investments. They've been waiting for 5 years and I really feel like, you know, this was a pretty good outcome for a tough situation. I mean, I don't think it was a an amazing payday for founders and team members, but I think they got some money out of it. Early investors made some money. Later stage investors at least got one X back. But there was an end to the story that was at least neutral if not positive and not negative. But I still feel like there's a lot of busted unicorns and overpriced valuations sitting out there that we we may not see such a happy ending for those companies as they as they get wound down back to Earth.
Well, their their problems are going to be Bending Spoons treasure. If you're in Airtable or if you're one of the 100 companies that are in that situation where you're underwater but still still performing and growing and maybe have a path to profitability, your your out is either, you know, but you're not growing fast enough for an IPO, maybe you go to a private equity, maybe it's a roll up, maybe it's M&A. Now maybe it's Bending Spoons. Maybe they become, you know, a a player where they get where able to acquire companies on a that are in this category and and do it at a severe discount to, you know, to the last price round. But, you know, it's a good is is that good outcome for the early investors and the founders? Founders are tired and Bending Spoons becomes a a a place, you know, where these companies can find a home and and and get cashed out or equity out. It could be a really interesting business down the line for Bending Spoons. I just think getting a 10 X multiple on that is is a little bit rich, but, you know, I I guess that's what the public market seems to be pricing. US VCs and and these private assets at a at a multiple. So, that's just seems to be where the market is.
All right. Well, thanks for that sum of parts, Aman. And I guess we'll we'll see you next time.
Sounds good. Thank you, Dave. Bye.
