Bumble was built on one rule: when a man and a woman matched, she sent the first message. In August the dating app dropped it, letting either person go first, as it struggled to hold on to paying customers. Two months later it is in advanced talks to leave the stock market altogether.
Going private means a buyer takes all of the shares and the company stops being listed. The would-be buyer is Ithaca Holdings, a firm founded recently by two Silicon Valley executives, Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, which plans to use AI across the businesses it invests in. The talks value Bumble at roughly $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, and a source who spoke separately to Reuters. Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is expected to stay involved and keep at least part of her stake in the business under its new owner.
Fewer people paying to swipe
Bumble has been losing the people who pay. Paying users dropped by more than a tenth last year, to about 3.7 million, and by the second quarter it had about a sixth fewer than a year before. Its bigger rival Match Group, owner of Tinder and Hinge, is under the same pressure, as younger users grow tired of endless swiping and use the apps less.
The money has followed the users down. Bumble was worth more than $14 billion after its 2021 market debut. It laid off about 30% of its workforce last year, months after Wolfe Herd returned as chief executive, and it still lost $127.9 million in the second quarter. The roughly $1 billion on the table now is what is left of that debut.
Talks, not a deal
This has been a while coming. Bumble was exploring a sale as early as June, with Morgan Stanley advising it, and its shares had fallen around 29% this year before the news. On Monday they jumped about 50%.
Nothing is signed, and neither Bumble nor Ithaca had responded to requests for comment. The Journal reported that a deal could come as soon as this week, while Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the negotiations could still fall apart.
