Bumble files for IPO – CNN

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The company filed paperwork for an IPO on Friday, possibly for a Wall Street debut at a time when dating apps have become lifelines for singles during the pandemic.

The company reported that it generated $ 376.6 million in revenue between January 29 and September 30 last year. During the same period, the company posted a net loss of $ 84.1 million.

Bumble was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, who started her career at Tinder. They initially planned to create a female-focused social network before landing on the concept of a female-focused dating app. Bumble requires women looking for straight matches to take the first step, believing that this feature would allow women to make their own choices. It took off: Bumble, headquartered in Austin, has become a household name and now includes services beyond dating, including professional networking (Bumble Bizz) and finding new friends (Bumble BFF).

According to IPO paperwork, the Bumble dating empire counted 42.1 million monthly active users at the end of September.

She sued Tinder, who founded Bumble and now, at age 30, is the CEO of a $ 3 billion dating empire

“We remain committed to the great opportunity that lies before us to make dating around the world healthier and fairer, not just for women, but for people across the gender spectrum,” Wolfe Herd wrote in a letter accompanying IPO paperwork. .

Bumble is poised to go public following other successful tech IPOs. Airbnb and DoorDash each shot massively in their recent public market debut, indicating strong investor interest.

Unlike many other tech companies, most of Bumble’s board is made up of women. At the age of 31, Wolfe Herd becomes one of the youngest female CEOs in technology to make her company public. Katrina Lake, the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, was the youngest female CEO in tech to do so in 2017, when she was 34.

Investment company Blackstone bought a majority stake in Bumble’s parent company – then called MagicLab but has since been renamed Bumble – from Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev in 2019. The parent company also includes Badoo, a popular digital dating service outside the United States founded by Andreev in 2006.

Andreev has been a partner of Wolfe Herd since Bumble’s inception. As part of the deal, Andreev sold his stake and resigned from the company; Wolfe Herd took over the helm. The Blackstone deal valued Bumble, the parent company, at $ 3 billion.

The online dating space is busy, with competing apps such as Tinder, Hinge, Match, and OKCupid, all owned by Match Group. But Wolfe Herd has worked to differentiate her business – from publicly slamming and blocking a misogynist to banning gun photos and flagging obscene images sent via direct messages on the app. She has also used her profile to deepen her weight in issues related to women and the digital world. In 2019, she and Bumble successfully argued for a new law in Texas banning digital sexual harassment.

“Our long-term vision is to be the platform to meet new people no matter what you’re looking for, whatever stage of life or situation you’re in,” Wolfe Herd wrote in the letter to investors. “We will do this with our innovative technology – and by advocating for equality, both through legislation and with the strength of our trusted brand.”

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