Bending Spoons cofounder and CEO Luca Ferrari
Hopin, the event tech juggernaut that skyrocketed in value during the pandemic on the strength of its virtual-meeting platform — and then plummeted when that demand dried up — is now selling off its remaining products. Last August, Hopin sold its flagship Events platform and its Session product to RingCentral for $15 million upfront, with an additional $35 million possible contingent on specific performance targets. At the height of its success, Hopin had been valued at a whopping $7.75 billion.
The products Hopin had elected to retain — headlined by the popular livestreaming and video-recording platform StreamYard, in addition to the video-hosting platform Streamable and community-focused Superwave — will now be acquired by Bending Spoons. Financial details of the deal haven't been disclosed.
Since selling its Events and Session products to RingCentral, Hopin has been in the process of rebranding to StreamYard Top Corp, according to a press release.
Applying AI to a growing portfolio
Bending Spoons, a Milan-based technology provider, has built an interesting portfolio of popular software products — including Evernote, Meetup, the AI-powered photo enhancer Remini, and the robust video-editing app Splice. The company places a particular emphasis on its AI research and engineering pipeline and the way that research is applied to its software products.
When Bending Spoons acquired Evernote in November 2022, the company aimed to take the productivity app to the next level by applying that AI technology. With its recent, January 2024 acquisition of Meetup and now StreamYard, the company appears to be turning its attention toward events, communication and community-building.
"We admire what the StreamYard team has built and look forward to leveraging our know-how and technologies to help its solutions reach new heights going forward," said Bending Spoons co-founder and CEO Luca Ferrari in a statement. The company hasn't responded to a request for more information about its plans for StreamYard, or how its proprietary AI technologies might be applied to its newly acquired platforms.