Bending Spoons Buys AOL: What This $1.5B Deal Means for Komoot’s Future
Today’s surprising news is that Komoot‘s Italian owner, Bending Spoons (BS), has just agreed to buy AOL for a reported $1.5 billion and secured $2.8 billion in debt financing to do it. The crux of the story: BS is aggressively positioning itself as a digital services portfolio owner, chasing a massive NASDAQ IPO in the coming years.
Bending Spoons: Corporate Raiding vs. Digital Revival
Bending Spoons (BS) has closed ever larger deals funded by debt, with seemingly little commonality between the acquired companies.
If I attempted to summarise its strategy, it would be that BS appears to acquire established, well-known, digital businesses that are underperforming and whose key asset is a large customer base. BS then cuts legacy costs (frequently via significant layoffs) and overhauls the technology and user experience to retain customers and sustainable recurring revenues to fund the debt interest.
As you can see from this acquisition timeline, the company has made increasingly bold moves.
| Agreement/Acquisition
Date |
Company Acquired | Product/Service | Reported Value |
| Sep 2022 | FiLMiC | Video-recording app (FiLMiC Pro) | – |
| Nov 2022 | Evernote | Personal productivity and note-taking app | – |
| Jan 2024 | Mosaic Group Assets | Suite of mobile apps | – |
| Jan 2024 | Meetup | Social platform for organising activities | – |
| Apr 2024 | Hopin (StreamYard) | Live streaming studio and events platform | – |
| Jul 2024 | Issuu | Digital publishing platform | – |
| Jul 2024 | WeTransfer | File transfer service | – |
| Nov 2024 | Brightcove | Streaming technology and video platform | $233 Million |
| Jan 2025 | Loomly | Social media management platform | – |
| Mar 2025 | Komoot | Navigation and outdoor route planning app | ~€300 Million |
| Jun 2025 | Harvest | Professional services software | – |
| Jul 2025 | MileIQ | Mileage tracking and expense logging app | – |
| Sep 2025 | Vimeo | Video-sharing and hosting platform | $1.38 Billion |
| Oct 2025 | AOL | Web portal and email provider | ~$1.5 Billion |
AOL’s Story
AOL’s story is one of decline following its spectacularly unprofitable acquisition by Time Warner (2001). A series of seemingly intelligent owners have down-managed the once-dominant ISP; it’s difficult to see what BS can add that hasn’t already been tried.
| Year | Owner/Parent Company | Acquisition/Change Type |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Independent | Founded as Quantum Computer Services (later renamed America Online). |
| 2001 | AOL Time Warner | Merged with media giant Time Warner in a $100+ billion deal (Jan). |
| 2009 | Independent | Spun off from Time Warner. |
| 2015 | Verizon Communications | Acquired for approximately $4.4 billion. |
| 2017 | Verizon (as Oath/Verizon Media Group) | Verizon acquired Yahoo, merging it with AOL under the Oath umbrella (renamed Verizon Media Group in 2018). |
| 2021 | Apollo Global Management | Verizon sold a 90% stake in the combined AOL/Yahoo media division to the private equity firm Apollo for $5 billion. The business operated under the Yahoo name. |
| 2025 | Bending Spoons | Agreed to be acquired from Yahoo (Apollo) for a reported $1.5 billion (Oct). The deal is expected to close by year-end. |
Komoot and the $12 Billion Question: Threat or Opportunity?
I’ll discuss the Komoot angle as it is of most interest to regular readers of this site.
Bending Spoons (BS) appeared to be a corporate raider, and Komoot employees and customers were worried that it would be stripped of assets and milked of its revenues. The fears were initially well-founded as many employees lost their jobs. However, the Komoot platform has reported continual improvements in 2025, including closer and deeper native integration with the Garmin Connect ecosystem.
No doubt price rises will follow. Whilst that has negative connotations, I would also expect paying Komoot subscribers to get a series of feature boosts, as Bending Spoons’s model prioritises retaining paying subscribers through constant product updates.
The End Game: A $12 Billion Valuation and NASDAQ IPO
BS received a funding round in 2024 valued at $2.55 billion. However, earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that one of BS’s owners, Baillie Gifford, was seeking investors for a secondary share sale that could value the company at up to $12 billion.
The endgame is an IPO. CEO Luca Ferrari stated he is “actively exploring a public listing” as part of a broader growth strategy. An IPO on the NASDAQ is most likely, possibly as soon as 2026. At least initially, such a move would increase the company’s value and give it access to further funds for growth.
The $12 billion valuation, coupled with the AOL acquisition and the $2.8 billion debt financing, makes Bending Spoons one of Europe’s most ambitious tech consolidators. For customers of Komoot, Vimeo, and Evernote, the next 12-18 months will be defined by whether this aggressive, IPO-driven strategy brings stability and an improved experience, or simply more price rises and layoffs.
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Why is this company buying all the failed tech businesses
number of steady customers and subscriptions from them. Scaling for IPO.