B2C · Italian app holding company

How Bending Spoons grows

2 tactics and 4 figures from 2 interviews.

About Bending Spoons

What it is: Italian company that acquires and operates consumer apps
Business model: portfolio of subscription apps
Funding: debt

As described in the interviews, not independently verified.

Bending Spoons's 2 tactics

Bending Spoons · B2C · app acquirer and operator

Buy mature apps, let go of almost all staff, and run them on one central team

Evernote kept ~2 of hundreds of staff and still rates 4.4 stars; company valued at $11B

Bending Spoons buys apps/subscription businesses (e.g. Evernote, AOL) and within the first month lets go of ~97% of the acquired employees, lifting the product onto its existing ~600-person team rather than shutting it down. Then optimizes pricing and marketing, where it is expert. Hosts add: products with years of locked-in user data (Evernote) tolerate higher prices, and a large user base (AOL's older email users) can be cross-marketed other apps.

Workedportfolioexit-ma

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-11-12

Bending Spoons · B2C · Italian app holding company

Borrow $600M from banks to buy famous apps that have been neglected

Bought Evernote for a rumored $100M+; results not discussed

Bending Spoons raised about $600M of debt from Italian banks, then bought Evernote, a well-known US app that was a good business but 'left by the wayside'. Part of a roll-up approach: centralize back-office services (marketing, content, finance) across owned apps.

Unknownportfoliofinancing

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2023-09-20

Bending Spoons by the numbers

Metric	Value	Context	Said in
valuation	USD 11,000M approximate		Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-11-12
share	97% approximate	Share of an acquired company's employees let go within the first month	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-11-12
team size	600 people approximate	Core team that absorbs each acquired business	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-11-12
debt	USD 600M approximate	Borrowed from Italian banks, used for acquisitions including Evernote	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2023-09-20 26:37

Topics

Buying and selling apps2 Running a portfolio of apps2 Bootstrapping vs raising money1 Pricing a subscription app1

Interviews

Why AI Probably Won’t Kill Your App (But Ignoring It Will) — Eric Crowley, GP Bullhound · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-11-12
Building the Berkshire Hathaway of Consumer Subscriptions — Eric Crowley, GP Bullhound · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2023-09-20