Bending Spoons acquires Evernote, marking the top of an period • TechCrunch

Evernote, the note-taking and activity administration app based over 20 years in the past, has been acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons. In a publish on Evernote’s newsroom, Evernote CEO Ian Small stated that Bending Spoons will take possession of Evernote in a transaction anticipated to shut in early 2023.

“For Evernote, this determination is the subsequent strategic step ahead on our journey to be an extension of your mind,” Small wrote. “Teaming up with Bending Spoons will [accelerate] the supply of enhancements throughout our groups, skilled, private and free choices.”

For Evernote, the acquisition — the phrases of which weren’t made public — marks the top of a curler coaster of a journey.

Based in 2000 by Russian-American entrepreneur Stepan Pachikov, Redwood Metropolis-based Evernote made handwriting recognition software program for Home windows and the eponymous note-taking, web-clipping app Evernote, which saved notes on an “infinite roll of paper.” Beneath CEO Phil Libin, who joined the corporate in 2007, Evernote shifted its focus to the net, smartphones and Mac, beginning with Evernote 3.0 in 2008.

This proved to be a profitable technique — at the least at first. Between 2010 and 2015, Evernote raised a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} in enterprise capital from traders together with Sequoia, Meritech Capital and Japanese media firm Nikkei. Its internet service reached 11 million customers throughout the first three years and Evernote launched a enterprise in China, Yinxiang Biji, because the startup sought to quickly broaden.

In 2013, Evernote was reportedly valued at almost a billion {dollars}. However then hassle set in.

Evernote’s chief working officer, appointed in June 2015, left after just some months. In the meantime, Libin pursued partnerships with bodily items manufacturers like Moleskine and Pfeiffer, launching Evernote-branded desk accent strains that didn’t catch on in a significant manner.

Former Google Glass government Chris O’Neill changed Libin in July 2015. And in October of that yr, Evernote laid off 18% of its workers and closed three of its ten world places of work.

August 2018 noticed an exodus of prime execs, together with Evernote’s chief technical officer, chief monetary officer, chief product officer and head of HR. Fifteen % of the corporate’s workforce was laid off in September 2018, a step O’Neill justified as essential to right for the corporate’s current overexpansion and “inefficiency.”

Small, the previous CEO of platform-as-a-service firm TokBox, got here on in 2018. Beneath his management, Evernote hit $100 million in recurring income, tens of millions of paying prospects and over 250 million customers. But it surely largely didn’t preserve tempo with rivals like Notion, opting to rely closely on a consumer-focused freemium mannequin whereas eschewing the sorts of collaboration options embraced by its rivals.

So what does Bending Spoons achieve with the acquisition? One other feather in its software program cap, it’d appear. The European tech firm makes apps like video editor Splice, 30 Day Health, Reside Quiz and picture editor Remini, which mixed have about 100 million customers.

Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari says that Bending Spoons will apply its “proprietary applied sciences” to Evernote to “increase its usefulness” and “strengthen its attain.”

“Our mission at Bending Spoons is to make an everlasting constructive affect on our prospects, on our teammates, and on society at massive. Day by day, tens of millions of individuals throughout the globe depend on Evernote to prepare their lives,” Ferrari stated in a press release. “As such, Evernote is an ideal match for the Bending Spoons portfolio, and we’re delighted to have the ability to serve its massive and dependable buyer base.”