Bumble Acquires Social Platform Geneva
Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, June 07 2024 @ 02:30 pm
Last modified on Friday, June 07 2024 @ 02:46 pm
Bumble is expanding its focus with the acquisition of Geneva, a platform built around connecting people with groups and clubs to help “build community.”
According to Tech Crunch, the acquisition further expands Bumble’s platform beyond dating in the hopes of gaining new users and growing revenue. As Tech Crunch noted, the company laid off a third of its workforce earlier this year, and has been struggling to increase its paying userbase along with other dating apps.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed with the announcement according to Tech Crunch[*1] , but as it pointed out, Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones has said that the company will be pursuing acquisitions to drive growth. This new purchase indicates[*2] the company is interested in community-building on its platform, likely to drive engagement.
Geneva is a New York-based company founded in 2019, and is comparable to Meetup in that it connects people with similar interests who live in the same area, whether it’s to form running clubs, hiking groups, book groups, or other types of gatherings. The main difference is that Geneva provides an active online community as well by offering different types of chat group forums. According to Tch Crunch, Geneva raised $36 million from investors like Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom of Instagram, Michael Moritz of Sequoia and Patreon co-founder Jack Conte.
Jones wrote of the merger that it will “accelerate our friendship product using Geneva’s powerful technology platform.” But the details, like whether Bumble will fold the platform into its app or keep it a separate entity, are in question.
Tinder has taken a different approach to help grow its paying userbase. It notably invested in AI-driven features, as well as a partnership with ChatGPT, to offer more enticing features that people are willing to pay for.
Geneva is advertising the acquisition on its website, which also highlights that its main offering is to create chat groups for people to connect over the platform. There are audio chat rooms as well as forums and broadcast rooms that people can join, depending on the size of the group.
According to Tech Crunch, Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones said on the company’s latest earnings call: “There’s certainly a lot of interesting technology companies across the industry that we’re constantly looking at, but we immediately look at if it actually aligns and accelerates with our long-term mission here.”
Geneva posted on its website[*3] about the merger, letting users know about the acquisition and the opportunity to expand their networks. “By combining Geneva's platform with Bumble's reach in friendship and community, we believe more people will be able to find and build lasting connections.”