The story of how Bumble made its CEO a billionaire and made people find love (hopefully!).
What’s New?
Bumble, the online dating app, has jumped 64% in its trading debut and raised $2.15 billion. According to Bloomberg, Bumble is being valued at around $14 billion including debt.
Initially, the company fixed a target to sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30 and then raised it to selling 45 million shares in the price band of $37-$39 per share. The company having a successful IPO is not the only thing we want to tell you here.
The successful IPO has made the CEO and co-founder Whitney Wolfe the youngest woman billionaire. She has nearly 12% stake in Bumble, and she ended Thursday with a net worth of $1.5 billion.
More About Bumble
The reason Bumble’s IPO was met with massive success is because of how the company has grown throughout the years after it was launched in 2014. According to Bloomberg, the company’s valuation has grown from $3 billion in 2019 to $8.2 billion now.
The app now operates in over 150 countries and SensorTower projects that along with Badoo, Bumble’s European brand, the firm has amassed around 54 million monthly users. According to a regulatory filing, Bumble generated a total revenue of $376.6 million from January 29 to September 30 last year.
The Pandemic Push
With more people staying indoors during the lockdowns around the world, many of them turned towards dating apps, in the hopes of finding love or just good company. According to a report by App Annie, consumers spent more than $3 billion on dating apps in 2020, which is up 15% YoY globally. Also, dating apps saw a total of 560 million downloads in the past year.
In 2020, Tinder was number one in the US as well as worldwide in the list of the highest annual overall consumer spend among non-gaming apps in 2020. Bumble ranked number 8 in the U.S and number 2 for dating apps in terms of annual overall consumer spend among non-gaming apps in 2020.
In The End,
Dating apps are designed to make people find love but the problem with that kind of strategy is that once people find love, they no longer need the app. So, you might think that Bumble’s success might be for a short period of time, but we beg to differ. Because Bumble is different. Bumble has features like Bumble BFF, which was introduced to find a new best friend and Bumble Bizz, a mode which is designed for professional networking and mentoring. Hence, Bumble’s success might go on for a long time.
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