Top Chef's Tom Colicchio got a 15x return on a tech company most Americans have never heard of. He thinks his own industry is broken | Fortune

"“Essentially, Bending Spoons covered everything else that I've done, and then some,” he told me, sitting in his office above his flagship restaurant in Manhattan's Gramercy neighborhood. The company is now reportedly preparing a U.S. listing that could value it at nearly $20 billion."

"Bending Spoons is best understood as a software rollup: it acquires underperforming consumer apps-Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Meetup, Eventbrite, AOL-and aggressively re-monetizes them, typically with deep staff cuts and price increases. It is exactly the kind of efficiency-first operator that, in another setting, Colicchio will tell you has helped hollow out creative industries. He does not pretend the tension isn't there. He just took the trade."

"That is how a friend told him about Bending Spoons. The Milan-based technology conglomerate closed a $710 million equity round in October 2025 at an $11 billion pre-money valuation, making it one of a handful of European tech decacorns. Colicchio got in early, exited around that round, and walked away with what he says was roughly a 15x return."

"Colicchio is direct about the state of his own industry in a way most operators aren't. “Craft's been open for 25 years, and last year was probably our worst year ever,” he said of his Flatiron flagship. “It is what it is. The restaurant business has never been easy, but it used to always be fun. It's not really fun"

Tom Colicchio began investing by writing checks after identifying people who could evaluate companies, observing their actions, and joining when conviction seemed credible. A friend led him to Bending Spoons, a Milan-based technology conglomerate that closed a $710 million equity round in October 2025 at an $11 billion pre-money valuation. Colicchio invested early, exited around that round, and reported roughly a 15x return. Bending Spoons operates as a software rollup that acquires underperforming consumer apps such as Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Meetup, Eventbrite, and AOL, then re-monetizes them through deep staff cuts and price increases. Colicchio acknowledges tension between efficiency and creative industries while benefiting from the approach. He also describes fine dining as less enjoyable recently, citing a worst year for his restaurant Craft.

Read at Fortune