Berkshire Hathaway invested over $900 million in Bending Spoons this week, bringing its total stake in the Milan-based software holding company to that amount. The news included a $330 million tranche disclosed Wednesday. Bending Spoons' stock rose 41% on the announcement, though it gave back some gains by week's end, valuing the company at roughly $30 billion.
Bending Spoons went public on the Nasdaq in late June at $29 per share and closed Friday at $47.07. Analysts at Mizuho said Berkshire's move provided "another vote of confidence" in the Bending Spoons model from "one of the world's most respected long-term investors."
The company has positioned itself as a consolidator of legacy software businesses overtaken by the artificial intelligence boom. Its holdings include AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite and Evernote. Bending Spoons describes Berkshire, under Warren Buffett, as a "longstanding inspiration" for its strategy of buying undervalued software companies and operating them for profit rather than seeking quick exits.
The same week, Bending Spoons announced substantial layoffs at Airtable, which it acquired in August for $1.3 billion, roughly 90 percent below Airtable's peak valuation in late 2021. The company has cut jobs at other portfolio holdings including Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer.
Bending Spoons has also agreed to buy Miro, once valued at $17.5 billion, for $1.36 billion. The pattern reflects what some call the "SaaSpocalypse," a period when software-as-a-service companies face displacement by AI-powered agents built on large language models. Shares of Intuit, HubSpot and Adobe have each fallen at least 30 percent this year.
Ethan Kurzweil, founder of Chemistry VC, said many solid SaaS products exist but "they're not on the frontier anymore." Nick Mehta, former CEO of Gainsight, said "Bending Spooned" has become a verb in Silicon Valley, referring to companies acquired for pennies on the dollar. "Anything pre-ChatGPT is legacy now," Mehta said.
Unlike traditional private equity firms such as Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity Partners, which dominated SaaS acquisitions over the past decade, Bending Spoons takes a hands-on operational approach and makes substantial product changes. Lloyd Walmsley, a Mizuho analyst, said few firms operate with "this level of change" or depth of operations involvement.
Customers of acquired companies have faced price increases. Evernote raised its annual personal subscription from $70 to $130 in April 2023, months after Bending Spoons acquired it, later restructuring plans to charge $100 to $250 depending on tier.