Evernote, the note-taking and course of administration app based mostly over 20 years prior to now, has been acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons. In a post on Evernote’s newsroom, Evernote CEO Ian Small talked about that Bending Spoons will take possession of Evernote in a transaction anticipated to close in early 2023.
“For Evernote, this decision is the next strategic step forward on our journey to be an extension of your thoughts,” Small wrote. “Teaming up with Bending Spoons will [accelerate] the provision of enhancements all through our teams, expert, personal and free decisions.”
For Evernote, the acquisition — the phrases of which weren’t made public — marks the highest of a roller coaster of a journey.
Based mostly in 2000 by Russian-American entrepreneur Stepan Pachikov, Redwood Metropolis-based Evernote made handwriting recognition software program program for House 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 company in 2007, Evernote shifted its focus to the web, smartphones and Mac, starting with Evernote 3.0 in 2008.
This proved to be a worthwhile method — as a minimum at first. Between 2010 and 2015, Evernote raised an entire lot of tons of of hundreds of {{dollars}} in enterprise capital from consumers along with Sequoia, Meritech Capital and Japanese media agency Nikkei. Its web service reached 11 million prospects all through the primary three years and Evernote launched a enterprise in China, Yinxiang Biji, as a result of the startup sought to rapidly broaden.
In 2013, Evernote was reportedly valued at virtually a billion {{dollars}}. Nevertheless then problem set in.
Evernote’s chief working officer, appointed in June 2015, left after only some months. Within the meantime, Libin pursued partnerships with bodily gadgets producers like Moleskine and Pfeiffer, launching Evernote-branded desk accent traces that didn’t catch on in a major method.
Former Google Glass govt Chris O’Neill modified Libin in July 2015. And in October of that 12 months, Evernote laid off 18% of its staff and closed three of its 10 world locations of labor.
August 2018 seen an exodus of excessive execs, along with Evernote’s chief technical officer, chief financial officer, chief product officer and head of HR. Fifteen % of the company’s workforce was laid off in September 2018, a step O’Neill justified as important to proper for the company’s newest overexpansion and “inefficiency.”
Small, the earlier CEO of platform-as-a-service agency TokBox, obtained right here on in 2018. Beneath his administration, Evernote hit $100 million in recurring earnings, tons of of hundreds of paying prospects and over 250 million prospects. Nonetheless it largely didn’t maintain tempo with opponents like Notion, opting to rely carefully on a consumer-focused freemium model whereas eschewing the types of collaboration choices embraced by its rivals.
So what does Bending Spoons obtain with the acquisition? One different feather in its software program program cap, it’d seem. The European tech agency makes apps like video editor Splice, 30 Day Well being, Reside Quiz and film editor Remini, which combined have about 100 million prospects.
Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari says that Bending Spoons — latest off of a $340 million enterprise spherical — will apply its “proprietary utilized sciences” to Evernote to “enhance its usefulness” and “strengthen its attain.”
“Our mission at Bending Spoons is to make an eternal optimistic have an effect on on our prospects, on our teammates, and on society at large. Every day, tons of of hundreds of people all through the globe rely upon Evernote to arrange their lives,” Ferrari talked about in a statement. “As such, Evernote is a perfect match for the Bending Spoons portfolio, and we’re delighted to have the flexibility to serve its large and reliable purchaser base.”
