Acquisitions follow at a very sustained pace for the Milanese group Bending Spoons, which is offering Eventbrite for 430 million euros. In a market dominated by large American operators, the Italian company is developing a counter-current model by purchasing stagnant or declining global platforms, which it is rationalizing, but above all relaunching the product trajectory.
Eventbrite, one of the historic players in ticketing and event organization, joins a portfolio already made up of Vimeo, Evernote, WeTransfer, komoot, Meetup and even Issuu. A collection of established brands, each facing updating challenges, which Bending Spoons intends to reposition in a logic of growth, far from the quarterly arbitrages imposed on the Stock Exchange.
The Italian company has deployed this strategy for three years, supported by large-scale debt raisings. Thus in 2025, it mobilized more than 500 million euros to accelerate its operations pipeline, before concluding the acquisition of Vimeo a few months later for 1.1 billion euros. This dynamic contrasts with the decline of large American platforms, slowed down by regulators and more busy optimizing their existing scopes.
Eventbrite, a platform, pioneer of the “experience economy”, is in the lead in terms of performance with its 5 million events in 2024 and more than 80 million paid tickets, its strong brand and massive use, but above all the update of the ticketing architecture in the age of AI seems difficult to carry out under the gaze of the stock markets. Thus the delisting opens a window to regain control of its product fundamentals, and of the relationship with event organizers.
Bending Spoons already details several priorities after the finalization of the operation, starting with integrated messaging, the use of AI to facilitate the creation of events, and wants to address the ticket resale market.
Eventbrite will be acquired for 430 million euros in cash, corresponding to a payment of 3.87 euros ($4.50) per share, representing a premium of 82% over the weighted average share price over the last 60 days as of December 1, 2025. The transaction was unanimously approved by Eventbrite’s board of directors. Its completion is scheduled for the first half of 2026, subject to customary conditions, including obtaining regulatory approvals and shareholder voting. Upon closing, Eventbrite will become a private company and its shares will be delisted. Eventbrite was founded in 2006 by Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz and Frenchman Renaud Visage.
Bending Spoons, founded in 2013 in Milan by Luca Ferrari and his associates, claims more than a billion users, 400 million monthly users and ten million paying subscribers. enabled the holding of 4.7 million events and the sale of 83 million paid tickets in 2024.
