Bending Spoons, a company known for revitalizing struggling tech firms, has agreed to buy Eventbrite for around $500 million. This is a significant drop from the $1.76 billion valuation the events and ticketing platform had when it went public in 2018.
Like other companies Bending Spoons has acquired, such as Evernote, Meetup, Vimeo, and AOL, Eventbrite boasts a strong brand. However, its growth has stalled, as shown by its audited financials.
Eventbrite was co-founded in 2006 by the husband-and-wife duo Julia and Kevin Hartz, along with Renaud Visage. Over its 12 years as a private entity, it raised nearly $330 million from top-tier investors like Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management.
Unlike traditional private equity firms, Bending Spoons focuses on companies it plans to keep long-term, aiming to boost profitability by reducing costs, increasing prices, and rolling out new product features. In October, Bending Spoons announced a substantial $270 million funding round, valuing the company at $11 billion.
Other investors also adopt the strategy of acquiring and revitalizing underperforming software firms, often called “venture zombie” companies. Notable firms in this space include Constellation Software, Curious, Tiny, SaaS.group, Arising Ventures, and Calm Capital.
Andrew Dumont, founder and CEO of Curious, shared with TechCrunch that his firm targets “great companies” at attractive prices and quickly turns them around to achieve profit margins between 20% and 30%.
For the last two fiscal years, Eventbrite’s audited annual revenue stayed steady at about $325 million. Bending Spoons has agreed to pay roughly 1.7 times Eventbrite’s trailing 12 months’ revenue of $295 million. Despite this low revenue multiple, Eventbrite shareholders will get $4.50 in cash per share, which is an 81% premium compared to the previous day’s closing price of $2.48.
