Venture Capital and Growth through Mergers and Acquisitions: The Bending Spoons Case

This thesis explores the intersection of venture capital (VC) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as engines of entrepreneurial growth, with particular emphasis on their role in innovation-driven and technology-based firms. The first part of the study provides a literature review of the venture capital industry, its financing dynamics, investment stages, and exit strategies, before turning to the M&A landscape and its theoretical foundations. Special attention is dedicated to the role of M&A as a proactive growth means, particularly in technology and startup ecosystems, where acquisitions serve as tools for scaling, acquiring capabilities, and accelerating market penetration. The discussion further examines the phenomenon of serial acquisitions and the emergence of VC-backed “buy-and-build” models, which increasingly blur the traditional boundaries between venture capital and private equity approaches. The second part applies these theoretical frameworks to the case study of Bending Spoons, one of Italy’s leading tech unicorns and among the most active European digital consolidators. Drawing on an analysis of the company’s consolidated financial statements (2019-2024), press reports, and secondary data, the case study investigates the firm’s business model, corporate governance, capital structure, and acquisition-driven growth path. The analysis highlights how Bending Spoons leveraged retained earnings, disciplined debt financing, and selective equity infusions from institutional investors to fund an ambitious sequence of acquisitions. These ranged from small-scale opportunistic deals to large, strategically transformative transactions such as Evernote (2022) and WeTransfer (2024). The findings illustrate how venture logic and M&A strategy can combine to generate sustainable, large-scale growth in the technology sector.