Why is Bending Spoons S.p.A. (BSP) stock up today?

Bending Spoons S.p.A. (BSP) climbed from a previous close of $37.45 to as high as $45.72 on Wednesday, settling around $43.75 — a gain of roughly 16.82% — after the company announced it had agreed to acquire Airtable for $1.285 billion in an all-cash transaction. The deal fits directly into Bending Spoons' established strategy of buying well-known but undervalued digital brands, then applying AI, data science, and subscription-driven business models to revive them. Airtable once commanded a peak private-market valuation of $11.7 billion, so the $1.285 billion purchase price represents a dramatic markdown that markets read as a favorable entry point for Bending Spoons.

The acquisition attracted wide coverage from Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Axios, and the Wall Street Journal, the latter describing the sale price as a 'kick in the gut' for software unicorns and their backers — including T. Rowe Price, which held a stake in Airtable. That framing reinforced the market's view that Bending Spoons secured the asset at a deep discount, a key ingredient in its acquisition-and-transformation playbook.

Separately, Bending Spoons also announced the opening of a new office in Madrid on August 5, signaling continued international expansion and hiring plans in Spain. While a smaller catalyst than the Airtable deal, it underscored the company's active growth posture on the same day.

The broader market was not a tailwind: the S&P 500 slipped 0.17% and the Nasdaq 100 (tracked by QQQ) fell 0.90% on the same session, meaning BSP's surge was driven entirely by company-specific news rather than a rising tide. Bending Spoons carries a market capitalization of approximately $29.30 billion as of this session.

BSP is a relatively recent Nasdaq-listed company that joined the Nasdaq Composite after a sponsor-backed IPO. Prior to today's move, web search data noted the stock was down roughly 8.94% year-to-date and had pulled back about 15.5% from its post-debut highs, so today's surge partially reverses that recent underperformance. The Airtable deal now stands as the dominant near-term story for the stock.