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For all the venture capitalist–inspired hype around tech startups, it’s always good to remember that many are too niche to ever amount to anything—and should never go public. We got a reminder of that on Tuesday when Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons said it would buy ticketing firm Eventbrite for $500 million in cash. That’s a stunning comedown for a company that went public in 2018 with a market value of about $1.7 billion.
Bending Spoons is paying $4.50 a share for Eventbrite, which sold the same shares in the IPO for $23 apiece (and Bending Spoons is being generous, given that Eventbrite shares on Monday were trading at $2.50). But if you look back in time, such an outcome might not be a surprise. As we wrote in this piece in 2018, Eventbrite had a “compelling origin story of a now-husband-and-wife duo” who founded the firm, but the business was never exactly a rocket ship. While it showed steady growth, there were signs it was slowing even before it went public. Not long after the IPO, problems emerged.
Eventbrite’s core challenge is that the business of selling tickets, particularly to the small and midsize events that were its niche, is a tough one in the best of times. You depend on a schedule of events you don’t control. Investors don’t have much love for the sector: Just look at StubHub, which went public in September and is now trading at around half its IPO price.
And Eventbrite has barely grown since its IPO. The number of tickets it sold that generated fees was 83.8 million in 2024, which is lower than in 2018. Revenue in 2018 was $291 million, which is about where analysts expect Eventbrite will finish in 2025, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. (That represents a 10% drop from 2024.) It’s little wonder that the company until Monday had a market capitalization of just $244 million. Eventbrite does make a little money—its free cash flow was $27 million last year. It is a perfect addition for Bending Spoons, which has now swallowed up AOL, Vimeo, Brightcove and Evernote—all U.S. tech names that have seen better days.
Netflix’s Change of Pace
Netflix’s happy run on Wall Street may be coming to an end. Stock of the video-streaming giant has fallen 12% in the past six weeks after a solid rally earlier in the year, amid growing chatter that Netflix will break its lifelong habit of avoiding big acquisitions by buying much of Warner Bros. Discovery’s business.
That may happen—but no one should bet on it. On Monday, Bloomberg reported Netflix had made a “mostly cash offer” for WBD’s film studio and HBO Max streaming service. Netflix is competing with the Ellison family’s Paramount, which wants all of WBD, and Comcast, which also wants only the studio and streaming service. Revised bids are reportedly coming in this week, with a final deal expected soon.
Paramount is seen as having the best shot at getting a WBD acquisition approved by the Trump administration, although the Netflix and Comcast offers might find more favor with WBD’s board. Netflix’s chances of winning don’t seem great. Investors presumably wouldn’t like a deal, which could distract Netflix management from day to day business. And whether the company would get a good return from such a deal has to be a question. As even Netflix executives have acknowledged, entertainment mergers don’t have a great history of success.
In Other News
• Amazon Web Services, at its annual re:Invent customer conference, unveiled a new Amazon AI model that can process text, speech, images and video: Amazon Nova 2 Omni. AWS CEO Matt Garman also announced the availability of the first cloud servers powered by Trainium3, the latest version of AWS’ custom chip for training and running AI models.
• Prediction market Kalshi said it raised $1 billion in a fundraising round led by existing investor Paradigm at a $11 billion valuation, more than double its $5 billion valuation in October.
• Torben Severson, chief of staff to Amazon’s retail chief, Doug Herrington, is leaving the e-commerce giant for OpenAI, where he will be head of global business development, Severson said on LinkedIn.
• Shopify said Tuesday its merchants generated $14.6 billion in worldwide sales during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping weekend, a 27% increase from last year.
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