News: 0180287093

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Bending Spoons Buys Eventbrite For $500 Million (morningbrew.com)

(Thursday December 04, 2025 @05:22PM (BeauHD) from the spending-spree dept.)


Longtime Slashdot reader [1]williamyf writes:

> The Italian company Bending Spoons seems to be on an acquisitions spree. Their recent [2]acquisitions of AOL and [3]Vimeo are not yet finalized, yet on Dec. 2 they [4]announced they are buying Eventbrite , a company specializing in publicizing and organizing local events, for just half a milliard USD. Bending Spoons' portfolio also includes other companies like [5]Evernote and [6]WeTransfer .

Further reading: [7]Private Equity Hipsters Are Coming For Your Favorite Apps (2024)



[1] https://slashdot.org/~williamyf

[2] https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/29/1631223/aol-to-be-sold-to-bending-spoons-for-roughly-15-billion

[3] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/10/1853252/bending-spoons-buys-video-platform-vimeo-for-138-billion

[4] https://www.morningbrew.com/stories/bending-spoons-buys-eventbrite-for-500-million

[5] https://slashdot.org/story/23/07/10/2318212/evernote-lays-off-most-of-staff-triggering-fears-of-closure

[6] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/07/31/1959212/bending-spoons-buys-file-sharing-service-wetransfer

[7] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/28/1850228/private-equity-hipsters-are-coming-for-your-favorite-apps



Private Equity Kiss of Death (Score:3)

by OverlordQ ( 264228 )

enshittify the product, saddle it with debt, strip of parts

Re: (Score:2)

by geekmux ( 1040042 )

> enshittify the product, saddle it with debt, strip of parts

Private equity and betting against success (hedging) should be shit out of the asshole of Capitalism and flushed forever.

Numbers (Score:3)

by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

I see "for just half a milliard USD" - notice that this is the European milliard notation, which is 1000 million.

Everything to confuse...

Re: (Score:2)

by CyberSnyder ( 8122 )

Yeah, never heard of a millard.

Re: (Score:3)

by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

In the UK it might at some time have meant a million squared.

Linguistic semantic trap.

Re:Numbers (Score:5, Informative)

by beelsebob ( 529313 )

No, it's never meant that.

In the UK, million has always meant 10^6. Milliard has always meant 10^9, but has fallen out of favor. Billion used to mean 10^12, but now usually means 10^9. Billiard has always meant 10^15, Trillion used to mean 10^18, and now usually means 10^12.

Re: (Score:2)

by williamyf ( 227051 )

> I see "for just half a milliard USD" - notice that this is the European milliard notation, which is 1000 million.

> Everything to confuse...

If you are confused, take a dictionary... The Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, and dictionary.com dictionaries would like to have a word with you, and that word is the ENGLISH word Milliard:

Oxford:

[1]https://www.oed.com/dictionary... [oed.com]

Merriam Webster:

[2]https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]

Cambridge:

[3]https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]

Dictionary.com:

[4]https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com]

Also, the acquiring company is italian, and there the word for 109 is "Millardo"

[1] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/milliard_n?tab=factsheet#36897979

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milliard

[3] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/milliard

[4] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/milliard

OK (Score:4, Funny)

by TwistedGreen ( 80055 )

Gee, I hope they don't do anything untoward with the company. Without Eventbrite, how else will people find events that fuel their passions and enrich their lives...

well this sucks (Score:5, Interesting)

by bhcompy ( 1877290 )

Eventbrite was an good way for small music venues to sell tickets electronically without have to deal with ticketbastard or axs. Easy to use and low fees for customers. For $500m, there's no way that persists

Re: well this sucks (Score:2)

by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 )

Ill keep my hopes up for Brown Paper Tickets

Re: (Score:2)

by geekmux ( 1040042 )

> Eventbrite was an good way for small music venues to sell tickets electronically without have to deal with ticketbastard or axs. Easy to use and low fees for customers. For $500m, there's no way that persists

Next week we'll hear about a "strategic partnership" between Bending Spoons and Ticketbastard while regulators pretend to be shocked, shocked I tell you about it.

Re: (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

Try ticketstripe.

Re: (Score:2)

by RitchCraft ( 6454710 )

Or putting flyers up around town and then paying in good old time tested hard cash at the door.

Re: (Score:3)

by edi_guy ( 2225738 )

IMHO Yes and no....Online ticket sales ok, but with a hefty 20% mark-up. I just pulled two random events in my area $20 face value, plus $5.55 for Eventbrite fee. Another was $40 ticket price, plus $8.85 Eventbrite fee.

Next, the Eventbrite search is abysmal. Search for events, put in a date time range, geo location, and type (Theater, music, comedy) and it's a random output of sponsored slop, incorrect matches (dates waay out of the range, etc) and even missing options that are actually using Eventbrit

Reduced competition (Score:2)

by mkwan ( 2589113 )

Bending Spoons now owns both Meetup and Eventbrite. I'm surprised it didn't raise an antitrust red flag.

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