The layoffs are the latest restructuring by Bending Spoons, the Milan-based tech conglomerate that acquired Vimeo for $1.38 billion in an all-cash deal that closed in the latter half of 2025. While Bending Spoons may be unknown to many, it has quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers, now owning Meetup, WeTransfer, Eventbrite, and many others.
Bending Spoons identifies a popular product it thinks it can improve inside and out, and buys it from owners who have reached their limits.
After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is anything but a passive owner, making changes to the products’ user experience and features, as well as to the underlying tech; monetization strategy, including pricing; and team organization, including headcount.
This is an incredibly undeservedly positive profile for this company. So many paragraphs here look like they were written by Bending Spoons or are uncritically repeating direct claims by the company.
“Transform them to serve millions of users more efficiently”? “Its main focus is on making improvements to products and services…”?
Awfully strange ways to say their business model is “find companies with entrenched or locked-in userbases and then turn goodwill and inertia into profit by laying off all but a skeleton crew, increasing prices and lowering services and quality.” Good thing that is totally different from what a private equity buyout does.
It’s 100% covert advertising. The users of Vimeo know better and are likely jumping ship ASAP. This is to convince people who haven’t left or don’t know better that things are fine and Vimeo is open for business.
yep we are. Vimeo was the home of indie filmmaking and vfx demoreels. it is more or less forgotten now
Where are people moving to from Vimeo?
I’ve seen more artists gathering their work on ArtStation, and Youtube
In the biz these are called advertorials.