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Startups & Venture·July 3, 2026·1 min read

Bending Spoons CEO on $18bn IPO: ‘We’re building a legendary institution’

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An $18B consumer app roll-up going public in Europe shows public markets will still pay for disciplined aggregation and distribution, not just AI narratives. For operators, durable cash flow and portfolio construction remain bankable stories even as AI-native plays crowd the venture stage.

Startups & Venture

Sources: Anthropic's bankers have hired UK law firm Freshfields to advise on its IPO; it also advised on Google's acquisition of Wiz and ServiceNow's Armis deal

A Freshfields mandate on Anthropic’s IPO is another marker that frontier AI is graduating into the same legal and capital markets machinery as hyperscale cloud and cybersecurity. For operators, that means to expect more disclosure, more regulatory scrutiny, and more predictable—though not necessarily cheaper—contracting dynamics with top-tier labs.