Bending Spoons does not present itself as a software publisher but as a capital allocation platform specializing in the acquisition and transformation of software companies. Through its IPO on the Nasdaq, the Italian company is seeking to convince Wall Street that the next phase of value creation in software will be based as much on operational excellence as on innovation.
The group has built a build-up machine based on three pillars: an extremely rigorous selection of talents, proprietary technological tools deployed in each acquisition and intensive use of data accumulated through more than fifty takeovers.
Artificial intelligence plays a central role in this strategy. It reduces the cost of integrating acquisitions, increases team productivity and allows Bending Spoons to operate an ever-expanding portfolio of assets without commensurate headcount growth.
The ambition goes far beyond AOL, Vimeo or Evernote. The company claims to have identified more than 1,000 potential targets representing nearly $400 billion in software revenue. Its market is not software users but software owners.
The targeted valuation of $20 to $22 billion is therefore based less on the current performance of the portfolio than on the platform’s ability to reproduce this model on a large scale.
The main question for investors now is whether Bending Spoons is a particularly effective acquirer or the prototype of a new class of technology companies capable of industrializing software consolidation on a global scale.
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