Bending Spoons Raises $1 Billion in Nasdaq IPO

Bending Spoons completed its initial public offering on the Nasdaq on Wednesday. The Milan, Italy-based company raised about $1 billion, with shares closing at $40.50 after a 40 percent gain. The company owns more than 50 digital brands, including AOL, Eventbrite, Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer and Meetup. These properties together reach about 500 million monthly active users.

Spoons reported $601.3 million in revenue for the first quarter, up from $248.9 million a year earlier. Net profit reached $27.5 million, compared with a $112.2 million loss in the same period last year. The company acquired AOL last fall from Yahoo for nearly $1.5 billion. AOL's main website recorded a 20 percent increase in traffic among users aged 25 to 54 over the past year.

Danieli said the acquisition approach has allowed the company to "reinvent iconic digital products." AOL generates revenue from advertising and from services such as identity-theft and malware protection. AOL co-founder Steve Case posted on X that the company first went public in 1992 at a $70 million valuation and later reached a peak market value of $160 billion.