According to TechCrunch, Bending Spoons has agreed to purchase Eventbrite for about $500 million in cash. That’s a huge drop from the company’s $1.76 billion valuation when it went public back in 2018. The deal offers Eventbrite stockholders $4.50 per share, which is an 81% premium over the previous day’s closing price of $2.48. Eventbrite, co-founded in 2006 by Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz, and Renaud Visage, has seen its revenue stall at around $325 million for both fiscal 2023 and 2024. Bending Spoons, which recently raised $270 million at an $11 billion valuation, is paying roughly 1.7 times Eventbrite’s trailing revenue of $295 million.
The Bending Spoons Playbook
So, what’s the plan here? Bending Spoons isn’t your typical private equity firm. They buy to hold, not to flip. Their strategy is brutally simple: acquire a well-known but stalled software brand—like they did with Evernote, Meetup, and Vimeo—and then work to make it profitable. How? Usually by cutting costs, raising prices, and adding new features. It’s a formula that seems to work for them, turning “venture zombies” (companies that raised tons of money but stopped growing) into cash cows. They’re not alone in this game, either. Firms like Curious, Tiny, and SaaS.group follow a similar “fix and hold” model for software businesses.
eventbrite-users”>What This Means For Eventbrite Users
Here’s the thing for anyone who uses Eventbrite to organize or find events: get ready for changes, and probably not all of them will feel great. The immediate goal for Bending Spoons will be to improve those profit margins. That almost certainly means we’ll see fee increases for organizers. Maybe some features get moved to a higher-priced tier. There might be some belt-tightening on customer support. But look, the alternative was a company that was basically treading water. If Bending Spoons can inject some product innovation and stability, that’s a net positive. The risk, of course, is that they cut too deep and degrade the experience that made the brand strong in the first place.
The Bigger Picture Of Tech Acquisitions
This deal is a pretty stark symbol of a shift in the tech landscape. We’re moving out of the era of growth-at-all-costs and into an era of profitability and sustainability. A company like Eventbrite, with a strong brand and flat revenue, is a perfect target. It’s a reminder that an IPO isn’t a finish line; it’s just another phase. For other “stalled” companies, this creates a potential exit path with firms like Arising Ventures or Calm Capital waiting in the wings. Basically, if you can’t grow anymore, you’d better be able to show you can be efficiently milked for cash. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the reality for a lot of maturing software businesses today.
