Why Bending Spoons bought Tractive? #199

Bending Spoons acquires Tractive, an Austrian GPS pet tracker with €100M+ ARR, breaking its software-only acquisition playbook for the first time with a hardware-subscription hybrid. The episode unpacks why a company that built an $11B valuation buying declining digital products like Evernote, Vimeo, and AOL paid a premium for a profitable, fast-growing hardware business. Tractive's co-founders came from Runtastic, the fitness app sold to Adidas for €220M, making this their second major exit using the same sensor-plus-subscription model in a different vertical. The hosts explore how Tractive's 900,000 paying subscribers generate a proprietary pet health and movement dataset that could unlock AI-driven veterinary intelligence and pet insurance products. In Italian startup news, Wearable Robotics — a Sant'Anna di Pisa spinoff building rehabilitation exoskeletons — closed a €5M Series A led by CDP Venture Capital, targeting a market where traditional therapy only recovers 10% of stroke patients. Capsule Corporation raised €800K to develop water-based propulsion systems for small satellites, positioning Italy as a hub for specialized space-tech engineering. The episode closes with a shoutout to Depthfirst, a cybersecurity startup with an Italian CTO from Google DeepMind, which raised $80M in a Series B less than 90 days after emerging from stealth.

Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠

Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠

Listen to all episodes on audio:

Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠

Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠

Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠

Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠

Get in touch:

Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠

Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠

Email: [e-mail]

#venturecapital #italy #startup