Finances

Dating app company Bumble Inc announced a secondary stock offering by majority stockholders Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bumble’s founder and CEO, and Blackstone. The price set for the secondary offering is at $22.80.

The price of Bumble stock fell 7 percent after this announcement, and after news that the previously announced 12.5 million secondary shares the company was originally going to sell went up to 13.75 million shares. Blackstone offloaded about $313 million in their stake in Bumble at the $22.80 share price, below the previous day’s closing price of $24.54. Another $47 million in stock “has been earmarked for over-allocation purposes,” according to Investing.com.

Blackstone offloaded the majority of shares, with Wolfe Herd cashing out just under $2 million in her shares of the company.

Match Group, parent company of popular dating app Tinder, is in talks to purchase a strategic stake in Shaadi, an India-based online matchmaking service.

The Economic Times first reported that the two companies were in talks, and that Match Group was looking to buy out Shaadi’s institutional stakeholders, but few details have emerged.

According to Ink 42, this latest development comes after Match Group has refocused its efforts and brought on a new executive team to run Tinder, which last year saw its first quarter of revenue decline since the company went public. Match Group has set its sights on the fast-growing Asian market, especially India and its large under-30 market.

Bumble surprised investors and analysts with its latest earnings report, which showed better-than-expected revenue in the last quarter of 2022. Shares of the company’s stock rose about 2 percent as a result.

According to Seeking Alpha, Wall Street analysts had expected fourth quarter revenue to reach only $235.9 million, but the company reported revenue of $241.6 million, up from $207 million in the same quarter the previous year.

Bumble also reported 3.4 million paying users during the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 3 million in the same quarter of 2021. Total average revenue per paying user was about $23.01 for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 22.68 the year before.

Match Group is expected to lay off up to 200 employees, or about 8 percent of its workforce (currently around 2400 employees before the cut) after sharing a disappointing outlook for the first half of 2023 in its latest earnings call.

According to Reuters, the company blamed “significant” poor product execution at Tinder, in addition to dealing with a tough economy and a strong dollar. CEO Bernard Kim brought in a new management team and is in the process of rebranding Match Group’s star app.

The layoffs were primarily in recruiting, with CFO Gary Swidler noting that the company is restricting its hiring to Hinge and other growth businesses, with notable cuts to Tinder staff.

Dating app Hinge has introduced a $60 per month subscription plan for “highly motivated daters,” offering the app’s most premium service for a hefty price tag.

The new plan will offer subscribers more exposure and better recommendations for potential matches, according to Bloomberg who broke the story. For example, top-tier subscriber “likes” will be seen before others’ likes, giving them quicker access to people who interest them.

The new tier pricing almost doubles the cost of the existing premium service of $35 per month, but is still well below matchmaking rates, which run thousands of dollars per month. The new plan was mentioned in an earnings call in November, and while the company confirms it will be launching, it has not been officially announced.

Tinder appears to be losing its steady growth of not only paid subscribers, but also new app installs. Bernard Kim is heading the dating app as well as its parent company Match Group and has installed a new executive team he hopes will turn the ship around.

According to Bloomberg, Tinder hit a high of almost 80 million users in 2020, in part due to a global pandemic and more people turning to dating apps while they were in lockdown. Since, the app has declined to 75.7 million users in 2021 and just last year fell to 71.1 million users.

At the same time, new users for Hinge and Bumble have increased. For Bumble, new installs of its signature app have jumped over 60 percent, from 18.1 million in 2020 to 29 million in 2022. And Hinge is showing strong growth as well, with 11.1 million new users in 2022 compared to 8.4 million in 2020.