Description
Bumble Inc. is an American social media company that operates the Bumble online dating application facilitating communication between interested users. In heterosexual matches, only female users can make the first contact with matched male users, while in same-sex matches either person can send a message first.
Users can sign up using their phone number or Facebook profile, and have options of searching for romantic matches or, in "BFF mode", friends. Bumble Bizz facilitates business communications. Bumble was founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd shortly after she left Tinder, a dating app she co-founded, due to growing tensions with other company executives. Wolfe Herd has described Bumble as a "feminist dating app". As of January 2021, with a monthly user base of 42 million, Bumble is the second-most popular dating app in the U.S. after Tinder. According to a June 2016 survey, 46.2% of its users are female. According to Forbes, the company is valued at more than $1 billion, and the company reports having over 55 million users in 150 countries.
History
Whitney Wolfe Herd, the co-founder of Tinder, founded Bumble shortly after leaving Tinder. Wolfe Herd sued Tinder for sexual discrimination and harassment and settled for just over $1 million in September 2014. Amidst the media attention surrounding the lawsuit, acquaintance and Badoo founder and CEO Andrey Andreev contacted Wolfe Herd via email, and the two met up. Andreev suggested she get back into the dating space, and the pair eventually formed a partnership in which Andreev would receive 79% ownership in the company following an initial investment of $10 million along with additional investments and Wolfe Herd would serve as founder, CEO and 20% owner. As part of the agreement, the new company would also utilize Badoo's infrastructure and Andreev's consulting. After the partnership was established, the pair recruited fellow Tinder departees Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick to design the interface and help launch Bumble. Bumble was launched three months later in December 2014.
The company headquarters are in Austin, Texas. It has 650 employees globally. In March 2016, Bumble released BFF mode as a way for users to find platonic friends. After switching into the mode, the app replaces potential dates with people of the user's same sex who are also looking for friends. In June 2016, Bumble announced a partnership with Spotify that would allow users to connect their Spotify account to their profile to show their music interests. In March 2017, the company announced its plan to launch a career networking app, Bumble Bizz. In August 2017, Bumble partnered with the Anti-Defamation League in an effort to remove users who display hate symbols in their profiles. In October 2017, the company launched Bumble Bizz which also uses a woman-first interface as an attempt to remove "the soliciting nature and sexism that exists in networking".
According to Forbes, the company was valued at more than $1 billion in November 2017. When private equity firm The Blackstone Group purchased a majority stake in Bumble's parent company MagicLab, Bumble and its sister apps were valued at $3 billion. Bumble and its sister apps earned $162 million in net revenue for 2018. In April 2019, Bumble launched its own lifestyle magazine called Bumble Mag. In 2020, Bumble replaced MagicLab as the parent company of both Bumble and Badoo. As of 2020, Bumble has over 100 million users worldwide. Bumble was listed on the Nasdaq exchange on Thursday, 11 February 2021, with shares initially valued at $43 but increasing during trading to $76, valuing the company at more than $13bn.
