The world of initial public offerings is often considered for the newest and greatest growth companies. An IPO for Bending Spoons SpA (NASDAQ: BSP) may sound like a restaurant, but it’s not. This is the newer owner of AOL after 40 years of being online back in the old dial-up access days. It also owns Vimeo, WeTransfer, Evernote, Remini, Eventbrite, Meetup and other properties. Outside of its acquisitions of AOL in January-2026 and the others mentioned, Bending Spoons has completed more than 50 acquisitions since inception.
As for AOL itself, the most recognized property of Bending Spoons, the company shows that AOL has 30 million monthly users and 3 million active daily email users. Bending Spoons saw its shares surge 40% above the IPO price after the company and some of its backers raised about $1.7 billion in their IPO. And Bending Spoons is actually based in Milan, Italy and was valued at $18.4 billion after the offering. The stock closed at $40.50 on Wednesday’s debut after pricing at $29.00 per share. Its shares were at $35 late on Thursday.
Back a quarter of a century, AOL was one of the top portals and was providing internet service to over 20 million consumers. And in 2001, AOL purchased the media conglomerate Time Warner as the largest acquisition at that time. A lot has happened since in the wake of internet portals, dial-up and broadband.
Bending Spoon also has some strong names behind it. The IPO was led by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Allen & Co. and 11 other investment banks. The top executive officers were listed as Luca Ferrari, Francesco Mancone, Enrico Martinelli and Francesco Patarnello. Additional key shareholders include Cox Investment Holdings, Baillie Gifford Overseas and entities affiliated with Durable Capital Partners LP.
The F-1 filing showed that the aggregate enterprise value of acquisitions was $2.01 billion in Q1-2026, $1.92 billion in 2025, $876 million in 2024 and $194 million in 2023.
Bending Spoon’s filing showed that it posted a net income of $27.5 million on $601 million in revenues for Q1-2026 from its amalgamated businesses. That was versus a net loss of $112 million and $259 million in revenue a year earlier. Revenue was $1.31 billion in 2025, with a compounded annual growth rate of 84% in 2023 through 2025; and also for 2025 the company showed that operating income as a percentage of revenue was 21% with Adjusted Operating Income Margin at 47%.
The combined brands also grew their monthly active users to 500 million in March from just 111 million at the end of 2023, with paying customers having risen to 9 million from 3 million over that same period. The corporate website now shows 1+ billion registered users, 400 million monthly active users and 7+ million monthly paying customers.
There is a lot more than just AOL at Bending Spoons, and AOL now has newer owners that want to bring back more than just the “You’ve Got Mail” mojo from years ago. And now the parent company has a new arsenal of post-IPO capital to help make that happen.
