Collector of Legacy Internet Brands Heads for an IPO

Once the poster child of the dot-com boom, AOL is now part of an Italian stockpiler of once-shiny internet names that's heading to Wall Street. Milan-based Bending Spoons, which bought what's left of AOL this year for $1.5 billion, plans to raise up to $1.62 billion in a Nasdaq IPO on Wednesday that could value it at as much as $19 billion, the New York Times reports. The company has been quietly assembling a portfolio of once-hot names—Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer, Brightcove, Eventbrite, MeetUp, and more—generating $1.3 billion in revenue last year while posting a small net loss. Bending Spoons, whose name is drawn from, yes, The Matrix, has acquired more than 50 companies, notes Reuters.

Its model: buy established but out-of-favor tech brands, cut staff, hike prices, and send in its own engineers to rework the products. CEO Luca Ferrari has described Bending Spoons as a cross between a private equity shop and a big-tech giant, saying it makes "drastic, sometimes painful" changes. That approach has drawn criticism from users and laid-off workers, and even led former StreamYard employees to launch Livid, a tool that helped Vimeo customers exit after Bending Spoons bought Vimeo. Backers counter that these aren't "walking dead" firms, just companies venture capital has moved on from as money and attention pivot to artificial intelligence.