Bumble, Once Worth $14 Billion, Sells for $1.3 Billion

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Bumble is swiping left on the stock market: The dating app is going private in a deal with Ithaca Holdings valued at about $1.3 billion (about €1.16 billion). The buyer is paying $6.05 (about €5.38) a share in cash, Bumble said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That is a fraction of what investors once paid for the company: Bumble was valued at about $14 billion (about €12.5 billion) when it went public in 2021.

A Premium, but Not for Everyone

For the remaining shareholders, the deal may still turn out to be a win. According to Bumble, the price is about 138 percent above last Friday’s closing price. Investors who bought in at the 2021 I.P.O. price of $43, however, are losing about 86 percent. The stock rose 50 percent on Monday and another 56 percent on Tuesday, to $5.95, Reuters reported. At the start of the week, the company’s market value stood at about $582 million (about €518 million).

The required shareholder approval is already in place: The investment firm Blackstone, which holds about 14 percent, and the founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, have given their written consent. A special committee of the board recommended the deal, and the board approved it unanimously, with Ms. Wolfe Herd recusing herself. Ann Mather, Bumble’s chair, called it the “best outcome for our shareholders.” Bumble did not give a closing date, and regulatory approvals are still pending.

New Leaders, With the Founder Staying On

Ithaca Holdings was founded by Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman. The company describes itself as a long-term holding company for established technology businesses, which it aims to renew with frontier technology and operating expertise. Once the deal closes, the two will lead Bumble as co-chief executives. “Technology should work in service of our deepest source of fulfillment, human connection,” they said.

Ms. Wolfe Herd, who founded Bumble in 2014, will remain actively involved, although the announcement does not give her a specific title after the deal. She stepped down as chief executive in 2023 and returned in March 2025 to turn the struggling app around. “I truly believe the best is yet to come,” she said.

Fewer Paying Users, Falling Revenue

The turnaround has not worked so far. In the second quarter, the number of paying users fell 16.4 percent to 3.2 million, and revenue has been declining for nearly two years. Bumble tried to respond with price increases, longer windows to reply, A.I. tools for writing messages and offline events. It is also testing an A.I. assistant meant to help with matchmaking.

Even the app’s signature feature is gone: This year, Bumble dropped its “women first” rule, under which only women could make the first move. Bumble still plans to file its third-quarter results with the S.E.C., but it will not hold an earnings release or a call with analysts.

Badoo, Fruitz and More

Bumble is more than one app. The group also includes Badoo, the dating app started in 2006 by the entrepreneur Andrey Andreev, whose group of companies gave rise to Bumble in 2014. After Blackstone took a majority stake in 2019, both apps were brought together under Bumble Inc. Bumble then went shopping itself: In 2022, it bought the French dating app Fruitz, whose users signal what they are looking for with different fruits. It also added the couples app Official and, in 2024, the community app Geneva.

Not much of that is left. Official was shut down in May 2025, and Fruitz was sold to a third party in July 2025, according to Bumble’s annual report. The friendship app Bumble For Friends was relaunched in the United States as BFF in 2025, but it had not generated any revenue by the end of the year.

Match Pulls Ahead

The competition is faring better. Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, is performing much more strongly, according to Reuters, thanks largely to its niche apps and Hinge’s international growth. Tinder is also experimenting with new revenue models and has introduced an exclusive subscription costing $499 a month. At the same time, competition is growing away from the apps: Start-ups like the Vienna-based offline dating club Find Your Needle are deliberately betting on meeting people without swiping.

A.I. as an Opportunity for the Industry

Whether Bumble will find it easier to turn around as a private company remains to be seen. Liesel Sharabi, a researcher at Arizona State University, sees A.I. as a turning point for the entire industry. “There hasn’t been a lot of innovation in the dating space for a while, and now that A.I. is here, the apps are going to be forced to innovate,” she told Reuters.