Bending Spoons' Nasdaq debut: IPO pricing, $25.7B market cap, and the 90% AI-coded strategy

Bending Spoons (ticker: BSP) began trading on the Nasdaq on July 1, 2026, after pricing its IPO at $29 per share on June 30 — above the marketed $26–$28 range — raising approximately $1.68 billion from the company and selling shareholders . The stock opened at $31 and closed its first day at $40.50, a gain of roughly 39.7% for a closing market capitalization of about $25.7 billion .

Valuation milestones

• The IPO priced at $29 implied an initial market value of roughly $18.4 billion, up 67% from the company's $11 billion private valuation from an October 2025 equity round .
• By the first-day close at $40.50, the market cap had risen to approximately $25.7 billion , more than doubling the October 2025 private valuation .

Company background

Bending Spoons was founded in 2013 in Milan, Italy, by CEO Luca Ferrari and co-founders . Through a strategy of acquiring and restructuring underperforming digital brands, its portfolio includes AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Evernote, WeTransfer, and Meetup .

Financials

• Full-year 2025 revenue: $1.31 billion, up 95% year-over-year .
• Q1 2026 revenue: $601.3 million, more than double the $258.9 million reported in Q1 2025 . The company swung to a $27.5 million profit in Q1 2026 .

AI adoption

According to Bending Spoons' SEC filing, AI now authors or co-authors more than 90% of the company's pull requests (code contributions), up from less than 10% in Q1 2025 . The S-1 prospectus explicitly highlighted this as a core driver of productivity, with revenue per core employee reaching $2.57 million .

Underwriters

The offering was led by Goldman Sachs International, J.P. Morgan, and Allen & Company . A total of ten additional bookrunners participated, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Jefferies, Evercore ISI, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole CIB, IMI–Intesa Sanpaolo, and UniCredit .

Notable investors

Pre-IPO investors included Durable Capital Partners (a backer of Duolingo), as well as Baillie Gifford . The IPO prospectus also listed Fidelity and T. Rowe Price as anchor investors through the bookbuilding process .

Significance of the listing

Bending Spoons' debut was notable in several respects:

• It is one of the largest Nasdaq listings by a European company in recent years, making it a landmark for Italian and European tech .
• It was a rare software IPO in a 2026 market that has been dominated by AI hardware companies — Channel NewsAsia and Reuters both described it as a rare software IPO amid AI-driven sector disruption .
• The offering was also structured with both primary shares (company raising ~$1 billion) and secondary shares (existing shareholders selling), allowing early backers to cash in .