Bending Spoons (NASDAQ:BSP) reported second-quarter results marked by triple-digit growth in revenue, operating income and adjusted operating income, as the digital-business acquirer continued integrating recently purchased companies and expanded its financing capacity for additional deals.
Revenue rose 126% year over year to $704 million in the second quarter of 2026. Operating income increased 139% to $240 million, producing a 34% margin, while adjusted operating income climbed 150% to $381 million, or a 54% margin. Diluted earnings per share rose 163% to $0.28, and adjusted EPS increased 167% to $0.46.
Portfolio performance and recent acquisitions
Organic revenue growth was 3% in the quarter, Co-CFO Enrico Martinelli said. WeTransfer and Tractive made the strongest positive contributions, while revenue declined at Remini and Splice. AOL Advertising also performed better than the company had expected.
During the quarter, Bending Spoons released more than 70 product improvements across AOL, Eventbrite and Vimeo, while modernizing the businesses’ underlying technology systems. The company completed its acquisition of pet tracking and health-monitoring service Tractive for an enterprise value of $759 million.
Bending Spoons also announced an agreement to acquire Airtable for an enterprise value of $1.29 billion. Ferrari said the company expects the transaction to close before the end of the year, though he said it was difficult to provide a more precise closing date.
Ferrari said Airtable’s brand, product, revenue trajectory and position in the no-code and low-code software market were key factors in the acquisition decision. He cited opportunities to expand within existing accounts, add customers and improve operating efficiency. Airtable would also help Bending Spoons deepen its experience with direct enterprise sales, an area where it has an existing foundation through Brightcove and Vimeo.
Management said it does not view the availability of acquisition targets as a material constraint over the next several years. Ferrari said the company has identified more than 1,000 potentially attractive digital-business targets, representing nearly €400 billion of estimated 2025 revenue collectively.
Operational initiatives and AI deployment
Ferrari identified operational capacity as a potential limiting factor, particularly as the company manages multiple large integrations. He said Bending Spoons is using artificial intelligence to increase productivity and has developed an internal personal AI agent called Alt-Spooner.
Alt-Spooner was made available to all employees in early July and processed more than 100 billion tokens during its first three weeks of general availability, according to Ferrari. The tool operates within employee access permissions and can use authorized work history and connected accounts. Bending Spoons hosts open-weight models itself while maintaining a model-agnostic architecture that can also compare closed-weight models.
The company said annualized revenue per “Spooner,” its term for core team members, exceeded €4 million in the second quarter. Ferrari said about 60 Spooners worked on Vimeo during the quarter, roughly the same number that worked on Evernote’s transformation in 2023, despite Vimeo being about four times larger by revenue and more operationally complex.
At Eventbrite, Ferrari said Bending Spoons completed a reorganization, released about 40 product improvements, increased advertising monetization by approximately 20% and reduced paid user-acquisition spending by about 30% without affecting top-of-funnel metrics. The company also began modernizing Eventbrite’s backend infrastructure.
At AOL, management said it is testing pricing and other changes but has not yet reached definitive conclusions. Ferrari said the company is rebuilding AOL’s content-management and advertising technology systems, with the goal of improving content recommendations, engagement and advertising inventory selection. The company incorporated potential near-term revenue disruption from the advertising technology transition into its guidance.
Margins, cash flow and financing
Martinelli said adjusted operating income margin expanded by 5 percentage points to 54%, supported by scale economies and efficiency gains. Operating expenses represented 32% of revenue, compared with 33% a year earlier, while adjusted operating expenses fell to 24% of revenue from 29%.
Interest expense rose 205% to €109 million, primarily reflecting higher absolute debt levels. Bending Spoons ended the quarter with $4.88 billion in long-term debt, $793 million in cash and cash equivalents, and net debt of $4.09 billion. Its leverage ratio was 2.4 times.
For the first half of 2026, net cash from operating activities totaled €254 million, while capital expenditures were €4 million. The company paid €2.29 billion for acquisitions, net of cash received, and made $204 million of principal repayments on long-term debt during the first half.
During and after the quarter, Bending Spoons added new euro-denominated term loans and increased its revolving credit facilities. It also raised $1.10 billion in net proceeds from its July initial public offering, selling 39.6 million primary shares at $29 per share.
Outlook
For the third quarter, Bending Spoons forecast revenue of $733 million to $745 million and adjusted operating income of $380 million to $400 million. For the full year, it expects revenue of $2.78 billion to $2.82 billion and adjusted operating income of $1.46 billion to $1.51 billion.
The guidance reflects the businesses Bending Spoons currently owns and excludes any contribution from the pending Airtable acquisition. Management said its current cash balances, expected cash generation, debt facilities and IPO proceeds provide sufficient funding for the Airtable transaction while preserving flexibility for additional acquisitions that meet its return thresholds.
About Bending Spoons (NASDAQ:BSP)
Bending Spoons S.p.A. is a technology company. It acquires digital businesses, implements deep transformations and ongoing optimizations to sustainably expand earnings and reinvests in additional acquisitions, thereby continuing the compounding cycle. Bending Spoons S.p.A. is based in MILAN.
