Berkshire Hathaway's Surprise Tech Bet: The Company That Buys AOL, Evernote and Vimeo
Berkshire has now put about $930 million into Bending Spoons, an Italian firm that buys ageing internet brands and runs them leaner. It is not the kind of company Berkshire usually backs.
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Berkshire Hathaway built its reputation on businesses you can explain in a sentence: insurance, railways, sweets, batteries, and fizzy drinks. So it was a surprise this week to learn that it has been quietly building a position in a company whose business model is buying other people’s tired websites.
That company is Bending Spoons, the Milan-based firm behind a string of acquisitions of well-known internet names. CNBC describes it as a company that “buys cast-off internet names like AOL, Evernote, and Vimeo, uses AI to cut costs, and deploys the savings to make more acquisitions.”
What Berkshire bought
On October 14, Bending Spoons announced that Berkshire had agreed to buy 10 million newly issued shares in a private placement, bringing in about $330 million before expenses. The company says it plans to use the money for general corporate purposes and new acquisitions, and expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The same release revealed something that had not been public before. Berkshire had already invested $600 million at Bending Spoons’ initial public offering in July. Together, that comes to roughly $930 million, and Bending Spoons says the new investment brings Berkshire’s ownership to 4%.
Francesco Patarnello, the co-founder who leads acquisitions at Bending Spoons, said in the release that the investment “reflects confidence in our team and Platform” and will help the company “pursue attractive acquisitions.”
Why it looks odd
CNBC points out that Bending Spoons is “decidedly not a typical Berkshire value play,” because it is valued at a large multiple of its earnings. Berkshire has historically preferred steady cash generators bought at sensible prices, and it has been famously cautious about fast-moving tech.
There is a way to see the logic, though. Bending Spoons is, in a sense, a value investor for software. It buys products with loyal users that bigger owners stopped caring about, then runs them more cheaply. That is a familiar playbook in other industries. The difference here is the speed, the use of AI to cut costs, and the fact that the products are apps rather than factories.
The open questions
CNBC also notes that nobody has said who at Berkshire made the call. Since Warren Buffett stepped back as chief executive, investors have been watching every move for signs of how the company’s thinking may change. A near-billion-dollar position in an Italian software roll-up is an interesting data point, though one investment is not a strategy.
More detail may come next month, when Berkshire’s regular disclosure of its holdings as of September 30 is due. That should show exactly how many shares it bought at the IPO.
For now, the takeaway is simple. One of the world’s most conservative investors has decided that the business of buying unloved internet brands is worth close to a billion dollars of its money. Whether that is a shrewd bet on a new kind of conglomerate or a sign that even Berkshire wants some AI exposure, only time and a few more acquisition announcements will tell.
This is commentary, not investment advice.