Francesco Patarnello

About Me

Francesco Patarnello cofounded Italian app developer Bending Spoons in 2013 with his three cofounders Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli and Luca Querella. The four friends launched Bending Spoons after working together on an unsuccessful, earlier startup Evertale, a note-taking app. The Bending Spoons cofounders met while studying in Copenhagen, Denmark, and would later relocate to Milan, Italy, as their new startup took off. The Milan, Italy-based startup struck on the strategy of buying apps and companies with a loyal audience where it sees the potential to overhaul its features and pricing. Bending Spoons was largely bootstrapped until it raised its first major funding round in 2022 and made its first takeover of Evernote in 2023. The company last raised $270 on a $11 billion in October 2025 to help fund its takeover of AOL and Vimeo. Bending Spoons is now Italy's most valuable startup and has bought, or taken private, a string of apps and startups like Meetup, Eventbrite, and WeTransfer.