A single company sits on both sides of a merger‑and‑acquisition deal: using AI to boost its own acquisition and integration efficiency, while also using AI to depress the relative value of traditional assets. Bending Spoons is currently the closest example of a “public‑market AI‑native PE.”
Fact
- September 4, 2026, Bending Spoons completed a acquisition of Airtable for $1.285B; September 10 also signed a deal to acquire Miro at an enterprise value of $1.355B.
- Miro already has approximately $600M ARR, with nearly 90% coming from enterprise customers, covering 250,000 organizations.
- The company follows a long‑term holding model: after acquisitions it undertakes deep restructuring of organization, technology, product, marketing and monetization; official disclosures explicitly state that AI is often both a core component of the post‑acquisition target state and a key tool for completing the transformation.
- SEC prospectus filing discloses: the share of code pull requests written or co‑written by AI rose from less than 10% in 2025 Q1 to over 90% in 2026 Q1, with about 70% entirely generated by AI.
- During the same period, revenue per full‑time employee increased from 2023 $1.12M to 2025 $2.57M, an increase of about 129% over two years; company revenue grew from 2023 $387M to 2025 $1.31B, with 2025 operating margin at 21% and Adjusted Operating Income Margin reaching 47%. These figures are as disclosed by the company and in the prospectus, and are unaudited.
- Post‑investment organization approach: restructure into smaller, higher talent‑density teams, reduce rules and processes, increase individual responsibility, and then use unified personnel, proprietary technology and data platforms to carry out product development, marketing and monetization; historical transactions such as Vimeo, WeTransfer and Evernote have all experienced large‑scale organizational compression.
Judgment
Compress the model into a chain: Acquire → dramatically increase Talent Density → AI‑driven R&D → shared Platform / Data → redesign product and pricing → boost Revenue / Employee → use cash flow and debt to continue acquisitions. This is already very close to a scalable AI‑native buyout operating system.
Based on this, FDEPE adds a new tracking category: AI Compounder = permanent capital + continuous controlling‑interest acquisitions + unified AI Platform + extremely high Talent Density + ongoing reinvestment. It differs from Blackstone, EQT and Partners Group — here the GP and the portfolio company combine into a permanently held AI M&A machine.
The prospectus also provides an M&A judgment: AI will amplify the buyer’s productivity advantage, while owners of many traditional firms lacking AI capability may be more willing to sell, resulting in lower valuations and better acquisition targets. AI thus sits on both sides of the equation: on one side it enhances the buyer’s operating ability, on the other it depresses the relative value of the seller’s assets.
Counter‑evidence
- September 12, 2026 Wall Street Journal financial review: Evernote's ARPU increased by about 150% between 2022 and 2025, but its user count nearly halved.
- Bending Spoons's debt was about $4.9B as of 2026, and 2025 Adjusted Net Income was about $402M, while net profit under GAAP was less than $1M.
- The core capabilities currently demonstrated are extremely strong unit economics, labor efficiency, and asset extraction; long‑term customer retention, debt capacity, and organic growth still need to be monitored.
- The share of AI code PR, revenue per employee and profit margin are all based on figures disclosed by the company or its prospectus and have not been audited by a third party; the consideration for the two transactions is expressed in enterprise value terms and does not include subsequent integration, restructuring or layoff costs.
Source: FDEPE tracking database. Event dates: 2026-09-04 Airtable closing, 2026-09-10 Miro signing, 2026-09-12 Wall Street Journal financial review. Source materials: Bending Spoons SEC prospectus (AI, labor efficiency and acquisition Playbook), Miro acquisition announcement of $1.355B, Reuters report. Company statements and prospectus figures are unaudited.