Tinder

The battle between Bumble and Match Group is entering a new round, and Bumble is taking the gloves off. Nearly six months after countersuing Tinder’s parent company for $400 million in damages, Bumble has announced it is no longer open to settling privately. Match Group and Bumble are heading to court.

“We had considered a private opportunity to settle privately, and that’s something we’re no longer open to,” Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told Fortune. “Now we are ready to take it to court.”

Match Group threw the first punch in March, filing a lawsuit alleging that Bumble “copied Tinder’s world-changing, card-swipe-based, mutual opt-in premise” and accusing two Tinder-turned-Bumble employees of violating their confidentiality agreements.

Online dating has become the most popular way for people to meet, but according to a recent article in Forbes, this doesn’t mean they’re are satisfied with the experience. Many are skeptical that technology will help them find love – and in fact, might make it harder.

The Forbes article focused on ghosting, a practice that has become ubiquitous among online daters. Ghosting happens when one person stops communicating with another with no explanation.

The problem with ghosting according to the Forbes article, is not the act itself, which has been around for a while, it’s how prevalent it has become. It has become such a problem among online daters that Plenty of Fish did a study, and reported that 78% of its users admitted to being ghosted at least once.

Sean Rad, Tinder co-Founder and former CEO, claims in a lawsuit that he was forced to sell his shares of Tinder stock by parent company IAC (now Match Group) under pressure of being fired. Because of this, he and other Tinder employees potentially lost millions of dollars through an alleged stock devaluation.

According to an article in The Verge, Rad says he was forced into exercising his options early, about a month before he was fired in September 2017. He says he felt pressured to sell because those options would expire after he left the company, and he suspected Match Group of planning his ouster. As it turns out, Match Group did fire him a month later, even though it wasn’t publicized at the time.

Popular dating app Tinder is rolling out a new service to attract a younger crowd. Tinder U is for college students, and gives users the option to match only with others at their school or at nearby campuses.

To use the service, customers must have a .edu email address and must also be geolocated on a college campus, according to website The Verge. Their Tinder U profile page will also include the name of their school, and when users swipe, their school logo will appear at the top of the screen, and their match’s school will appear in the bottom left corner of each profile. The app’s functionality is the same, with students viewing profiles and swiping left or right as they choose. It is important to note that using the Tinder U service will match students in the same area, regardless of whether they attend the same college or university. Members who join Tinder U will also be able to toggle between and use regular Tinder if they wish.

Sean Rad, Co-founder of Tinder

Former and current Tinder employees slapped a lawsuit against parent company Match Group, claiming the popular dating app was purposefully devalued at the time Match Group was valuating stock options. The Tinder employees suing Match Group were placed on administrative leave, according to a report by MSN.

The ten former and current Tinder employees initiating the lawsuit include founder and ex-CEO Sean Rad along with co-founders Justin Mateen and Jonathan Badeen. Tinder’s VP of Communications Rosette Pambakian has also joined the lawsuit, and claims that IAC/ Match Group executive Greg Blatt sexually harassed her at a company party. (IAC changed its name to Match Group, but the company is still owned by media mogul Barry Diller.)

Pambakian wrote an email to Tinder employees explaining her decision, as reported by Fortune Magazine:

Match Group, the parent company of popular dating apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, and PlentyofFish, reported second quarter earnings of $421 million, exceeding industry analyst expectations.

The rise in profits was thanks to its star app Tinder, which gained an additional 300,000 subscribers in Q2 alone, and has seen a record 3.8 million subscribers to date. Match Group expects to earn $1.72 billion this year, with Tinder expected to exceed $800 million in revenue, according to Fortune Magazine. Match Group’s subscribers for all apps total about 7.7 million.

“Retention and conversion were a bit stronger than we thought they would be,” Chief Executive Mandy Ginsberg told website MarketWatch.