Contributed by: Editor on Wednesday, January 20 2021 @ 11:30 am
Last modified on Wednesday, January 20 2021 @ 11:35 am
Earlier today we posted about Lumen shutting down even though the Lumen FAQ mentioned they had a lot of subscriptions which is an indication that the dating service was catching on. In the same article we also mention that ever since Whitney Wolfe Herd became CEO of Magic Lab, the company has been going through a lot of changes.
These changes have them consolidating their brands and re-branding Magic Lab, the holding company for their dating brands, which include Badoo and Bumble, to just "Bumble" (we think...). It is not clear what the name may actually be. Some articles from major media outlets have suggested the name is Bumble Group but the only place that name is mention on the Bumble website is in their Terms and Conditions.
The Bumble Group includes, but is not limited to, Bumble Holding Limited (an English company), Bumble Trading LLC (a Delaware limited liability company), Bumble Inc. (a Delaware corporation)...
See how confusing things are! There are a lot of Bumble companies. It hasn't helped the fact since the original Magic Lab website has been closed and no new website or webpage on an existing Bumble owned website exists for the rebranded Magic Lab company.
Another wrinkle to this is that Bumble (the holding company not the app) recently filed for an IPO[*1] with the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 15, 2021 (we will write about the exact details in a later post). They filed under the name "Bumble Inc.". All these changes are probably to prepare for this IPO and to make sure the company is reflected most favorably. The thing is, I find it extremely confusing what they are trying to do. Why rebrand your holding company to the exact same name as your one of 2 popular brands you have left? I can see naming it to reflect the most popular brand like "Bumble Group" (like how Match Group did) to help sell your IPO but exactly the same name leaves it confusing now and makes it appear they are excluding Badoo for some reason.
Anyways I find these recent questionable decisions makes me wonder what else Bumble the holding company may be doing wrong, all in the name of the IPO. I will watch to see how things go when the company actually goes public which most likely will be in February sometime.