New York, NY – July 5, 2026 – Bending Spoons, the Milan-based digital holding company known for breathing new life into once-dominant internet relics like AOL and MySpace, is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange this week with an eye-popping valuation of $19 billion. The IPO arrives at a moment when investors are increasingly betting on the value of established user bases over flashy, unprofitable growth startups.
In a market hungry for proven revenue streams, Bending Spoons has carved out a unique niche by acquiring aging but still-trafficked digital properties—often for pennies on the dollar—and ruthlessly optimizing them for mobile monetization. The company’s prize asset remains AOL, which it purchased in 2024 for a reported $1.5 billion. Since then, Bending Spoons has slashed overhead, relaunched AOL Mail as a subscription service, and integrated its news aggregation into a suite of productivity apps, sparking a 40% surge in monthly active users across its portfolio.
The IPO filing revealed that Bending Spoons generated $2.8 billion in revenue over the past fiscal year, with a net profit margin of 22%. Analysts point to the company’s proprietary AI-driven ad platform, which repurposes legacy content for short-form video and personalized feeds, as a key driver. “They’re not just buying nostalgia; they’re building a data engine on top of it,” said Sarah Chen, a tech analyst at Frost Capital. “This is a bet that the forgotten web still has billions of dollars in untapped attention.”
Despite the bullish numbers, skepticism lingers. Critics argue that Bending Spoons’ aggressive cost-cutting—including mass layoffs at acquired companies—has often alienated loyal users. The relaunch of MySpace as a music-focused creator platform in early 2026 saw mixed reviews, and some investors worry the portfolio lacks a flagship growth brand. The company has also faced regulatory scrutiny in the EU over data privacy practices tied to its ad network.
Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari, who will ring the opening bell on Wednesday, framed the IPO as a vote of confidence in the “forgotten internet.” In a statement, he said, “We don’t build from scratch. We rebuild what already works. The public markets now have a chance to own a piece of the digital past that we are engineering for the future.” The stock is expected to trade under the ticker BNDS on the NYSE, with the final pricing set for Tuesday.