BENDING SPOONS ACQUIRES MIRO FOR $1.35BN

Bending Spoons, an Italian software company, is acquiring Miro, a California-based workplace collaboration platform, for $1.35bn in cash, with an overall equity value of $1.79bn. The deal represents a significant decline from Miro's valuation of $17.5bn in 2021. Miro's platform allows workers to connect various tools and AI outputs into one governed location for collaborative work. The company, co-headquartered in Amsterdam and founded in 2011 by Andrey Khusid and Oleg Shardin, serves clients including Ubisoft, PepsiCo and Comcast.

Miro recorded $600m in annual recurring revenue, drawn almost entirely from business and enterprise customers. The company employed around 1,600 people across 14 global hubs. According to company figures, Miro's user-base grew from 30m in 2022 to more than 100m this year, with nearly 4m paying customers, up from 130,000 in 2022. As part of the transaction, a number of Miro shareholders agreed to invest $295m into newly-issued Bending Spoons equity. Bending Spoons CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari stated that the company planned to invest substantially in performance, reliability and functionality following the acquisition's close.

This marks Bending Spoons' second major acquisition since going public in July. Last month the company announced it was acquiring US automation company Airtable at an implied equity value of around $2.25bn. Bending Spoons operates more than 50 brands including Evernote, WeTransfer, Eventbrite and AOL. Bending Spoons' share price gained marginally at market close on announcement, though the company's shares had declined nearly 23 per cent over the preceding month.