MILAN, July 2, 2026, 13:06 CEST
- Bending Spoons S.p.A. NASDAQ:BSP closed at $40.50 in its Nasdaq debut, up 39.66% from the $29 IPO price; WSJ showed a $39.3828 pre-market quote at 7:05 a.m. EDT.
- The close put the equity near $25.7 billion, about 9.9 times pro forma 2025 revenue by a calculation from the final prospectus.
- AOL’s 2025 historical-as-adjusted operating income equaled about 66% of Bending Spoons’ final pro forma operating income, while AOL supplied about 24% of pro forma revenue.
- Nasdaq’s regular session had not started at the dateline time; July 3 is closed for the observed Independence Day holiday.
Bending Spoons S.p.A. ordinary shares NASDAQ:BSP start their second public day with the stock still far above the IPO price and a valuation that puts an older web business at the center of the trade. The less-used line in the final prospectus is AOL: in 2025 historical-as-adjusted data, it supplied $333.6 million of operating income against $633.4 million of revenue, while final pro forma combined operating income was $508.8 million.
At 7:05 a.m. EDT, before the regular U.S. session, WSJ quoted BSP at $39.3828, down 2.76% from Wednesday’s $40.50 close. The regular Nasdaq session starts at 9:30 a.m. ET and ends at 4 p.m. ET; Nasdaq lists July 3 as closed for the observed Independence Day holiday.
The shares opened at $31 and closed at $40.50 on Wednesday after the $29 IPO, giving the company a $25.7 billion market value, Reuters reported. The IPO price valued Bending Spoons at about $18.4 billion.
That repriced the company from about 7.1 times pro forma 2025 revenue to about 9.9 times, and from about 36 times pro forma operating income to about 51 times, based on the prospectus pro forma revenue and operating income figures.
| Measure | At $29 IPO price | At $40.50 close | July 2 pre-market quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share move vs IPO | — | +39.7% | +35.8% |
| Equity value | ~$18.4 bln | ~$25.7 bln | ~$25.0 bln |
| Price/pro forma 2025 revenue | ~7.1x | ~9.9x | ~9.6x |
| Price/pro forma 2025 operating income | ~36x | ~51x | ~49x |
The float was narrow as fresh capital. Bending Spoons offered 34.4 million shares and selling shareholders offered 23.6 million. The company expected $953.9 million before expenses; existing holders expected $653.7 million. In the company’s dilution table, new investors buying primary shares represented 5.4% of shares purchased from the company but 62.4% of total consideration paid to it.
The control did not move with the float. Four co-founders — Matteo Danieli, Luca Ferrari, Francesco Patarnello and Luca Querella — will own class A shares and hold 82.71% of voting power after the IPO. Ordinary shares carry one vote; class A shares carry five.
The profit mix matters because the share price is not just paying for AI. The prospectus shows acquisitions completed since late 2025: Vimeo on Nov. 24, AOL on Jan. 2 and Eventbrite on March 10. The final pro forma 2025 split gives a clearer view of what the market bought.
| 2025 pro forma item in filing | Revenue ($ mln) | Operating income/loss ($ mln) |
|---|---|---|
| Bending Spoons historical | 1,306.4 | 277.9 |
| Eventbrite historical as adjusted | 291.8 | -26.0 |
| Eventbrite acquisition adjustments | — | -30.7 |
| AOL historical as adjusted | 633.4 | 333.6 |
| AOL acquisition adjustments | — | -12.2 |
| Vimeo historical as adjusted | 376.9 | -12.5 |
| Vimeo acquisition adjustments | — | -21.3 |
| Pro forma combined | 2,608.5 | 508.8 |
Ferrari told Reuters the company had found more than 1,000 companies that may be acquisition targets and added: “We’re not in a position to announce anything, but we’re very active.” The prospectus says those targets had nearly $400 billion in aggregate 2025 estimated revenue. Reuters
Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, said the deal will be “a data point for the software industry,” but scarcity may be part of the read-through. “Bending Spoons has a very different profile compared to most software IPOs in the pipeline,” he told Reuters. Reuters
Tim Schumacher, founder of saas.group, was more blunt. “Bending Spoons isn’t really a software holding company,” he told Reuters. “It’s a high-conviction venture bet wearing a holding company’s clothes.” The test, he said, is whether a debt-fueled software factory can last through a full cycle. Reuters
The debt is visible in the first-quarter numbers. At March 31, Bending Spoons had $740.8 million of cash, $425.6 million of current long-term debt and $3.93 billion of non-current long-term debt. In the same quarter, operating income was $120.2 million and interest expense was $93.2 million.
The subscription data is the cleaner support for the valuation. In Q1 2026, 84% of revenue came from subscriptions, net revenue retention was 94%, and revenue-weighted average subscriber tenure was 8.0 years. The same filing says monthly active users are not de-duplicated across products, a caveat for the headline scale metric.
Ferrari’s AI case is also measurable. The filing says pull requests authored or co-authored by AI rose from less than 10% in Q1 2025 to more than 90% by end-Q1 2026, with about 70% authored by AI alone; revenue per full-time equivalent Spooner rose from $1.12 million in 2023 to $2.57 million in 2025.
The underwriters may buy up to another 8.70 million shares at the IPO price: 5.24 million from the company and 3.45 million from selling shareholders.
