Bumble

Popular feminist dating app Bumble is preparing for an initial public offering early next year, and is reportedly talking with banks about the plan.

The timing is still tenuous, but it was reported by Bloomberg News that the company’s valuation could be between $6 billion to $8 billion dollars. Bloomberg also noted that private equity firm Blackstone Group bought a majority stake in Bumble last year, when it was known as MagicLab. Blackstone valued the company then at $3 billion.

MacigLab was recently rebranded as Bumble by its new CEO and Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, who took over after Andrey Andreev resigned. Herd has made some changes including significant rebranding and folding in gay dating app Chappy to its signature Bumble dating app. Popular dating app Badoo, also founded by Andreev, is part of the Bumble suite of apps.

Bumble on TikTok

Bumble has turned to TikTok to help drive new subscribers, and has seen its installs increase five times between March and May when their campaign took place. The dating app has also seen its costs per subscriber decrease by 64% since running its direct response ads on TikTok’s platform, according to Mobile Marketer.

Bumble employed influencers to raise awareness of its app, creating content that would attract new users, specifically the younger demographic that gravitates to video-based social media like TikTok. The partnership was a success, with Bumble reporting revenue last month that was second only to dating app Tinder. 

Bumble's Whitney Wolfe Herd

Female-forward dating app Bumble announced a major rebrand for the company as it also celebrated its milestone of reaching 100 million users worldwide. Parent company Magic Labs, which also owns popular dating app Badoo as well as Lumen and Chappy, will now be called Bumble under the direction of CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd.

Together, the Bumble and Badoo apps have a total of 600 million users around the world. Bumble’s app hit its milestone number in July and will look to Badoo for help in expanding its global reach. 

Wolfe Herd took over a year ago as CEO of Magic Labs when former CEO Andre Andreev left in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct at Badoo, the app company he founded, which employees said contributed to a hostile work environment. Herd’s vision is to be more diverse and inclusive when building dating apps and her companies, and to put social justice and gender equality front and center. Wolfe Herd oversees over 750 employees in Austin, London, and Moscow.

The app industry saw revenue spike to $50.1 billion for the first two quarters of 2020, in part due to people isolating at home to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Dating app Tinder topped the list of non-game app revenue earners.

This marks a 23.4% increase from the first half of 2019 according to Tech Crunch, compared with a 20% increase for the same time period between 2018 and 2019. The data seems to also point to a growing new user base. First time app installs were up 26.1% in the first half of 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019, and reached a total of 71.5 billion downloads.

Topping the non-game app list was dating app Tinder, followed by YouTube, and popular social apps TikTok and Tencent. Netflix was the fifth-highest earner.

Dating app Bumble announced a new in-app crowdsource campaign to nominate LGBTQ+ organizations that support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) who experience police violence and racial injustice, a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bumble plans to donate $5,000 each to these selected organizations.

Bumble explained the campaign on its website: “…we can’t support Pride without acknowledging the intersection of the LGBTQ+ movement with the Black Lives Matter movement. Many queer Black activists have been on the frontlines of these fights for fundamental human rights for decades, and the Stonewall Riots—which are widely credited with starting the gay liberation movement—were an uprising in reaction to police brutality against LGBTQ+ people. It was the same kind of unacceptable police brutality and abuse of power that we’re still seeing today, only now more focused on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).”

Dating apps like Grindr, Hinge and OkCupid have been weighing whether or not to keep an ethnicity filter on their apps in the wake of protests against police violence in the U.S. and around the world. 

According to Forbes, Grindr announced that it would be dropping the filter as an option from its app in its next update. The company posted a statement on Twitter, adding: “We will not be silent. Black Lives Mater.” But this decision created a backlash among many who saw this move as too little, too late. @guillotineshout responded: “In solidarity we are removing our racism button” is the most tech company thing I could imagine.”

Grindr had received criticism before for the ethnicity filter, but other dating apps like OkCupid and Hinge who also have them, have chosen to keep theirs.