Berkshire Hathaway Increases Investment in Italian Tech Company Bending Spoons by $330 Million, Raising Stake to 4%
Berkshire Hathaway has increased its investment in Italian tech company Bending Spoons by $330 million, raising its stake to 4%. The company's stock rose approximately 40% on the same day.
This investment was completed through a private placement, with Bending Spoons issuing 10 million shares of common stock to Berkshire at a price of $33 per share, which is about a 13% discount to the previous day's closing price. Berkshire had previously invested $600 million in the company ahead of its IPO in July 2026, bringing its total investment to nearly $930 million. Francesco Patarnello, co-founder and head of mergers and acquisitions at Bending Spoons, stated that the funds will enhance financial flexibility and support ongoing evaluation of acquisition opportunities, with a strong pipeline for the company.
Bending Spoons, headquartered in Milan, operates by acquiring and transforming struggling or stagnant digital subscription and software businesses, having completed over 50 acquisitions, including AOL, Vimeo, Evernote, WeTransfer, Airtable, Eventbrite, Brightcove, and Tractive. The company deeply integrates acquisition targets into its own technology platform, rewriting code, optimizing products, and monetizing them, with a long-term hold strategy rather than resale. CEO Luca Ferrari mentioned in a recent podcast that the difference with Berkshire is that "we buy and hold permanently."
The company is set to go public on NASDAQ on July 1, 2026, with an offering price of $29, closing at $40.50 on the first day, raising $1.68 billion, and at that time, the market capitalization was approximately between $18.4 billion and $25.7 billion. Following this investment, Berkshire becomes the sixth largest shareholder of the company. As of June 30, the company held $793 million in cash and cash equivalents, with a revolving credit availability of $1.28 billion.
From a market mechanism perspective, event-driven trading is evident, with Berkshire's additional investment as a long-term capital allocator being interpreted by the market as an endorsement of Bending Spoons' permanent hold and operational model, driving a significant one-day stock price increase. Funds flow from Berkshire to Bending Spoons' equity, providing the latter with more ammunition for further acquisitions; beneficiaries include Bending Spoons' shareholders and sellers of potential acquisition targets, while the pressure point lies in the software sector's valuation fluctuations due to AI concerns and the company's reliance on continued successful integration to prove the returns of its permanent hold strategy.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Berkshire Hathaway has been known for its long-term holding of quality businesses since the era of Warren Buffett, and in recent years, under Greg Abel's leadership, it has increased exposure to technology and AI-related sectors, including making Alphabet one of its top three holdings; this latest investment in Bending Spoons continues its cross-industry allocation path, but the target itself is an acquisition machine rather than a traditional industry.
The capital is actually directed towards Bending Spoons' equity and subsequent acquisition ammunition, with the company using the funds to acquire digital assets that have product-market fit but suboptimal operations, and optimizing costs through its own platform; the motivation is to leverage the valuation compression in the software sector caused by AI narratives to achieve compound returns with permanent capital rather than private equity-style exits.
This is similar to permanent-holding software acquisition companies like Constellation Software, but Bending Spoons emphasizes deep technical integration and single-platform operations rather than loose holdings; it is currently in an expansion phase, primarily focusing on balance sheet acquisitions post-IPO, without shifting to a fund model.
Essentially, it represents capital concentration and industrial chain restructuring: the permanent holding structure allows the company to reuse engineering and product capabilities across its portfolio, reducing exit pressure on individual transactions while centralizing dispersed internet legacy brands into a unified operational system; the mechanism is that traditional private equity's fixed term limits deep transformation incentives, while the combination of permanent capital and technology platforms changes the pricing and integration paths of digital assets.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Permanently holding reduces exit pressure while amplifying integration responsibility
Valuation compression creates buying windows, operational capability determines holding returns
Capital recognizes the model, with the market pricing ahead of profits