Bumble Files for IPO – CNN

Bumble Files for IPO – CNN

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The company filed paperwork Friday for an initial public offering, which could potentially set it up for a Wall Street debut at a time when dating apps have become lifelong for singles during the pandemic.

The company reported that it raised $ 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 began her career at Tinder. His initially started creating a female social network before ending up on the concept of a woman-focused dating app. Bumble requires women looking for heterosexual matches to take the first step, with the idea that this feature will enable women to make their own choices. It started: 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 the IPO paperwork, the Bumble Dating empire had 42.1 million active users at the end of September.

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

“We remain committed to the greatest opportunity we have ahead of us to make conversations and fairer around the world, not only for women but also for people across the gender spectrum,” Wolfe Herd wrote in a letter accompanying the IPO paperwork.

Bumble intends to launch on the heels of other successful technology offerings. Airbnb and DoorDash have each recently risen in their debut on the public market, indicating strong investor interest.

Unlike many other technology companies, the majority of Bumble’s board consists of women. At 31, Wolfe Herd becomes one of the youngest female CEOs in technology to announce her company. Katrina Lake, the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, was the youngest female CEO in technology to do so in 2017, when she was 34.

In 2019, the investment firm Blackstone bought a majority stake in the parent company of Bumble – then called MagicLab – from Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev. The parent company also includes Badoo, a popular digital data service outside the United States, founded by Andreev in 2006.

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

The online dating space is overcrowded, with competing apps like Tinder, Hinge, Match and OKCupid all owned by Match Group. But Wolfe Herd worked to differentiate her company – from the fact that a misogynistic user is publicly beaten and blocked, to the ban on gun photos and the flagging of obscene images sent through direct messages on the app. She also used her profile to shed her weight on issues concerning women and the digital world. In 2019, she and Bumble successfully pleaded 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 are looking for, in whatever phase of life you are 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 through the power of our trusted brand.”

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