Bending Spoons acquires Eventbrite for $500 million in all-cash deal

Eventbrite, a global event marketplace, has been acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italian technology conglomerate, in a deal worth  $500 million. Eventbrite shareholders will receive $4.50 per share in cash, a premium of about 82% over recent trading levels. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory and shareholder approval, after which Eventbrite will become a privately held company.

“Joining forces with Bending Spoons will accelerate innovation and strengthen Eventbrite’s tools and resources to bring even more people together through shared live experiences for many years to come,” said Luca Ferrari, Bending Spoons’ CEO and co-founder. He added that the company looks forward to working with Eventbrite on “building a dedicated messaging feature, introducing AI for easier event creation, improving searchability, and creating a system for the secondary ticket market.”

For Bending Spoons, already the owner of platforms like Vimeo, WeTransfer, and Evernote, the acquisition signals an ambition to expand into the live‑events space with a suite of new tools.

More competition in the African event management space

The acquisition could have a significant impact on Africa’s events sector. Eventbrite already has visibility in Nigeria through Eventbrite Nigeria, and Bending Spoons’ investment could bring new features and resources to local organisers. Proper localisation for payments, currency, and event management needs will be key to its further adoption.

Tix Africa, founded in 2019, is one of the main local competitors. It addresses challenges such as cashless payments, ticket sales data, access control, and event analytics. The startup raised a pre‑seed round in 2021 to scale its platform, and, in 2023, reportedly crossed ₦2 billion in ticket sales in Nigeria, up from ₦884 million the previous year. Tix Africa is expanding regionally into markets like Rwanda and the United Kingdom and offers an all‑in‑one solution that combines ticketing, payments, and analytics.

With Eventbrite backed by Bending Spoons, African event organisers now have a choice between a globally supported platform with advanced features and a local platform designed for currency, infrastructure, and cultural realities. This competition could accelerate innovation and encourage further consolidation in the sector.

The move follows a trend of global ticketing platforms entering Africa. Last year, Ticketmaster acquired Quicket, a pan‑African self‑service ticketing company active in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa. That deal gave Ticketmaster access to the continent’s live entertainment market while allowing Quicket to operate independently.

For organisers in Nigeria and across Africa, Eventbrite, under Bending Spoons, could offer tools and features previously out of reach. Local startups like Tix Africa and US-based Luma, the latter of which has been gaining traction in the African online events space, now face stiffer competition, where success will depend on innovation, localisation, and user experience.