Shares in relationship app firm Bumble soared by virtually 50% on Monday after a report that it’s in superior talks to be purchased for round $1bn (£757m).
Expertise holding firm Ithaca might announce a deal to purchase the Texas-based agency as early as this week, in line with the Wall Road Journal.
The bounce in Bumble’s shares pushed its inventory market valuation to over $580m however that’s nonetheless far under a peak of greater than $14bn it reached after listing on the Nasdaq in 2021.
Bumble is without doubt one of the world’s most downloaded relationship apps, working in a crowded market the place development has slowed. The BBC has contacted Bumble and Ithaca for remark.
Bumble was launched in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, who was additionally a co-founder of relationship app big Tinder.
Wolfe Herd constructed Bumble’s model round a particular function that solely allowed girls to provoke conversations with matches.
It recently abandoned that rule, prompting debate amongst customers over whether or not the app had misplaced what set it aside from rivals.
“Right this moment, our group is asking for extra flexibility, much less strain, and extra alternatives to create actual, significant connections and that’s what this new expertise gives,” Wolfe Herd stated in August.
Relationship apps like Bumble have come below strain in recent times as some youthful customers have grown disillusioned with looking for dates.
Bumble stated in 2025 that it will lower virtually a 3rd of its workforce because the business grappled with what Wolfe Herd described as an “inflection level” in on-line relationship.
Investments in different relationship firms have additionally soured as apps have struggled to persuade customers to pay for his or her providers.
Match Group – which owns apps together with Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge – has additionally seen its shares fall sharply from their peak in 2021.
In accordance a report by media watchdog Ofcom in 2025, adults within the UK have been spending much less time on relationship apps in comparison with three years earlier.
Some single persons are as an alternative turning to board game get-togethers, e-book golf equipment and different group actions within the hope of discovering a associate.
