Bumble, the dating app where women make the first move, has publicly filed plans to go public.
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The Austin-based company filed IPO plans confidentially with the SEC last month, with Bloomberg reporting that it was targeting an initial public offering in February, possibly around Valentine’s Day.
Bumble is known for being a female-centric dating app where women have to make the first move by messaging their match. It competes with other popular dating apps like Tinder and Hinge (which are owned by Match Group).
While Bumble started in the dating space, it’s expanded to cater to users looking for new friends with Bumble BFF and users looking to network with other professionals with Bumble Bizz. Bumble operates the apps Bumble, which launched in 2014, and Badoo, which was first introduced in 2006.
In its S-1 registration document with the Securities and Exchange Commission filed Friday, Bumble reported that it had about 42 million monthly active users during the third quarter of 2020 and around 2.4 million paying users as of September 2020. The app has a presence in more than 150 countries, per its filing.
The company reported revenue of nearly $377 million between Jan. 29, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2020. Its losses during that period came out to about $84.1 million. The company has turned a profit in the past: It generated a profit of $68.6 million in the first nine months of 2019, when it recorded nearly $363 million in revenue.
Accel, Greycroft, and Blackstone Group are among the company’s investors, according to Crunchbase.
The app does face competition in the dating space, as it notes in its S-1 filing, with larger players like Facebook entering the space by adding dating features. It also notes in its “Risk Factors” sections that user behavior could affect the company’s performance.
“Users of our products have been, and may in the future be, physically, financially, emotionally or otherwise harmed by other individuals that such users have met or may meet through the use of one of our products,” the company wrote. “ When one or more of our users suffers or alleges to have suffered any such harm either on our platform or in person after meeting on our products, we have in the past, and could in the future, experience negative publicity or legal action that could damage our brands and our brands’ reputation. Similar events affecting users of our competitors’ products have in the past, and could in the future, result in negative publicity for the dating industry generally, which could in turn negatively affect our business.”
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among the underwriters for the IPO. Bumble is seeking to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker BMBL.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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