Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, May 28 2025 @ 03:23 pm
Last modified on Wednesday, May 28 2025 @ 03:23 pm
Randian Capital, an activist investor in Bumble, is urging the company to follow its “turnaround plan,” which also includes a potential sale.
The investor group spent six months analyzing Bumble’s business practices and is advocating for drastic change to be made because “the current trajectory is not working,” according to sources who spoke to Investing.com.
When asked about potential buyers, Randian mentioned one interesting company – Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and dominates the social media market. Meta is also currently the subject of an SEC investigation into the nature of its previous mergers, which are alleged to violate anti-trust laws, due to some internal correspondence among its executives.
Meta previously launched a dating app through its Facebook platform, which Radian also cited in its argument for a potential acquisition.
Randian recommended Bumble accelerate its stock buyback program as well, according to Investing.com[*1] , noting the share price is a “compelling value opportunity.” The firm also urged Bumble to aggressively cut operating costs, noting that this can be done without sacrificing value.
Randian also expressed interest in Bumble recruiting some new younger Gen Z talent, though the firm said it is happy with Whitney Wolf Herd returning to run the company.
The focus of Randian’s deep dive was to understand the reason for the company’s significant drop in share price, from $76 at its high to $4.01. Randian feels the company is undervalued, citing stable revenue and EBITDA resilience as the company’s strengths. It also argued that “market sentiment is unnecessarily negative” according to Investing.com.
But because of this low share value, Randian also sees Bumble as particularly attractive as a leveraged buyout target or strategic target for a prominent tech player (like Meta) or an AI lab.
Randian pointed to OpenAI, Anthropic, and X Corp as potential AI labs that could purchase Bumble, mostly as a source of user data for AI training, which is problematic for all the people currently (and formerly) who have used the platform. A potential sale would raise privacy concerns, especially over sensitive data people post on dating apps, like sexual preferences, locations, and photos. There is also the question of in-app messaging, and if that might be subject to AI training should an AI lab purchase the company.
This puts a lot of pressure on Wolf Herd to raise the share price and revenue while the dating app market itself is in flux. Younger singles are increasingly turning to social media platforms and other ways of meeting, rather than using dating apps.