Bumble Plans to Go Public In February

Dating app Bumble is looking to make its stock market debut in February, likely in time for Valentine’s Day, according to a report from Bloomberg who broke the news.

The female-forward dating app was rumored to be planning its IPO for 2021, but there was no date or even timeframe specified. The company is backed by investment firm Blackstone Group, and according to Bloomberg, has already confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. In 2019, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in what was known as MagicLab, now rebranded as Bumble, which owns the Bumble apps and Badoo among other dating apps. At the time of the purchase, MagicLab was valued at about $3 billion.

As previously reported, Bumble could seek a valuation between $6 and $8 billion when it goes public, and is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley on the IPO.

This past year has been especially lucrative for dating apps, including Bumble’s main competitor Match Group, which owns several dating apps including Tinder. Match Group saw a 12 percent increase in total paying subscribers in the third quarter of 2020 (more than half of which use Tinder), and an increase in total revenue of 18% to $640 million. Hinge has also grown significantly this past year, with an 82% increase in users year to date, according to Nasdaq.

Bumble has increased its revenue, too, though Match Group’s Tinder still far outpaces them. While Bumble reached over 100 million subscribers in July of this year, and hit about $300 million in sales, Match is projected to earn $2.4 billion, eight times as much as Bumble. 

Match Group has also seen its stock soar in November, joining the NASDAQ-100 Index, a list of the exchange’s largest non-financial companies that acts as a benchmark for other corporations. The company saw a 19.2% increase in its stock value in the same month. 

According to industry analysts, while Bumble and Match Group are expected to continue to do well into 2021, Bumble’s growth and impending IPO are not yet a real threat to Match Group’s Tinder and its fast-rising apps like Hinge and new niche dating app BLK. And Match Group’s stock valuations might be higher than what can be expected revenue-wise from the company.

Still, there’s no doubt that the pandemic had an effect on the dating app market as a whole, as more people than ever turned to them for connection and virtual dates while quarantined at home. And the timing of Bumble’s IPO could prove to be beneficial for the company.