The uncertainty unsettling software investors is creating an opening for Bending Spoons. The Italian technology company has announced a $1.3 billion deal to buy collaboration tool Miro, following its purchase of Airtable in August. For chief executive Luca Ferrari, fears about artificial intelligence are helping bring more attractive businesses within reach, at prices he considers easier to justify.
He is less enthusiastic about the description of Bending Spoons as a collector of ageing technology brands. Airtable and Miro are “absolutely modern, growing businesses,” he said. “It’s not that we only buy legacy brands.” His argument is not that software has escaped the threat of AI, but that the risks are becoming more sensibly reflected in acquisition prices.
Ferrari described prevailing SaaS valuations as reasonable, in contrast with a long period when he considered them “irrationally high.” Those earlier prices, he argued, could not be supported by any reasonable projection of cash flows. AI has forced investors “to go back to their spreadsheets” and ask whether their assumptions survive scrutiny. Often, in his view, they do not.
That is not the same as declaring every software business doomed. Asked how durable Miro’s recurring revenue would prove—the interviewer cited $600 million annually—Ferrari declined to discuss the company in detail because the acquisition has not closed. More broadly, he sees a spectrum: some software businesses are exposed to AI in a potentially existential way; many face manageable risks; and a scarce few are almost insulated from disruption.
Bending Spoons believes its technology and expertise can help businesses in that middle group benefit from AI rather than lose out to it. Ferrari pointed to economies of scale and network effects as advantages worth protecting. He also rejected the simplistic notion that, because AI is digital, only digital businesses face upheaval. Other industries, he said, have credible reasons to worry too.
The buying opportunity is not just about technology. In Ferrari’s assessment, private equity firms have plenty of assets they need to sell, while there is comparatively little private equity money ready to buy them. That imbalance makes conditions more favourable for an acquirer. Bending Spoons, he made clear, likes the moment.
Why not wait for an even better one? Challenged on whether the capital-spending boom could eventually produce richer bargains, Ferrari did not dismiss the possibility. He questioned the timing. Bending Spoons uses its history of returns to set an investment hurdle, and its recent acquisitions meet that hurdle on its current expectations. Waiting for a hypothetical improvement could mean sitting out for years. A downturn may come; knowing when is another matter.
Ferrari was equally direct about how the company expects to make its money. “We have never really been a financial engineering operation,” he said, describing Bending Spoons as almost the polar opposite. Its thesis rests on bringing better talent and technology to acquired businesses, improving their products, organisations and monetisation. He considers that approach both more enjoyable and more resilient through market cycles than relying on financial manoeuvring.
Higher interest rates can even work in the company’s favour, he argued, because they tend to depress acquisition valuations. Given the returns Bending Spoons expects, a few hundred basis points of additional interest costs are less consequential than a substantial reduction in the purchase price. Valuations that are 30% or 40% lower, he said, would be “a huge boon for us as an acquirer.”
There remains the question of whether a handful of deep-pocketed technology platforms, including Microsoft, will dominate enterprise AI. Ferrari called that a reasonable concern, but said Bending Spoons is assembling an enterprise product platform of its own. Airtable and Miro are two pieces of that puzzle; Vimeo is another, with further additions hopefully coming over the next few months and years.
If the largest technology companies do dominate, his answer is to keep concentrating on customers. Serving them well, monetising efficiently and operating efficiently remain the foundations of the acquisition strategy. Ferrari’s confidence rests less on predicting the eventual shape of the AI market than on Bending Spoons’ ability to run the businesses it buys better.