Bumble files for IPO – CNN

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The company filed documents on Friday for an initial public offering, potentially setting it up for its Wall Street debut at a time when dating apps have become a lifeline for singles during the pandemic.

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

Bumble was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, who started her career at Tinder. She First set out to create a social network focused on women before landing on the concept of a dating app focused on women. Bumble is forcing women looking for heterosexual matches to take the first step, the idea being that this feature would allow women to make their own choices. It’s taken off: Austin-headquartered Bumble has become a household name and now includes services beyond dating, including professional networking (Bumble Bizz) and finding new friends (Bumble BFF).

According to its IPO documents, the Bumble dating empire had 42.1 million monthly active users at the end of September.

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

“We remain committed to seizing the great opportunity that lies ahead of making dating healthier and fairer around the world, not only for women, but for people of all genders,” Wolfe Herd wrote in a letter. accompanying the IPO documents.

Bumble is set to go public following other successful tech IPOs. Airbnb and DoorDash both exploded in their recent public market debuts, suggesting strong investor interest.

Unlike many other tech companies, the majority of Bumble’s board is made up of women. At 31, Wolfe Herd will become one of the youngest female tech CEOs to go public. Katrina Lake, Founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, was the youngest tech CEO to do so in 2017, when she was 34.

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

Andreev had been Wolfe Herd’s partner since Bumble started. 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 crowded, with competing apps like Tinder, Hinge, Match, and OKCupid, all owned by Match Group. But Wolfe Herd has worked to differentiate his business – from slamming and publicly blocking a misogynist user to banning gun photos and reporting obscene images direct messages on his app. She also used her profile to focus on issues relating to women and the digital world. In 2019, she and Bumble successfully advocated for a new Texas law banning digital sexual harassment.

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

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