The crash of Bumble’s stock price from $53 per share in 2021 to $3 per share today has led executives to explore an acquisition.
Bumble, a popular dating app, has long been distinguished for its “women-first” approach. Founded by CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, a former Tinder co-founder, Bumble’s initial design only allowed women to make the first approach in heterosexual matches.
Coinciding with the rise of the Me Too movement, Herd believed that encouraging women to send the first message on dating apps would reduce sexual harassment and balance power dynamics.
“It was 2014, but so many of the smart, wonderful women in my life were still waiting around for men to ask them out, to take their numbers, or to start up a conversation,” she said.
Originally, the app featured time-limited matches, where a user was given just 24 hours to converse with a given match. Growth was substantial in the early years, with Bumble surpassing 100 million users in 2020 and going public the following year.
Despite its past success and profitability, Bumble made a series of costly user engagement decisions following its IPO that significantly altered the company’s course.
In 2021, Bumble raised monthly membership prices from $32.99 to $39.99 and later removed free features completely.
After these decisions, Bumble began experiencing substantial declines in financial performance. This year, the company’s revenue fell 14.1%, adding to a previous decline of 9.9% in 2025.
Furthermore, Bumble reported a net loss of $128 million in its most recent earnings report alongside $451 million in debt and just $154 million in cash and cash equivalents.
With the company facing financial challenges, executives recently confided in consultants at Morgan Stanley, hoping to gain a potential offer of sale.
Currently, Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, appears to be the highest contender for a Bumble acquisition. Match Group previously offered to acquire Bumble for $450 million in 2017, but that offer was ultimately rejected by Bumble executives.
In any acquisition, however, Bumble is likely to undergo serious changes. Although some core features may remain, competitors may choose to alter Bumble’s design to better appeal to Generation Z.
Despite this uncertain future, Herd has made new updates to the Bumble app. The company recently introduced new artificial intelligence-powered features to test compatibility and improve match recommendations.
Among these features, the AI assistant known as “Bee”, attempts to replace swiping by learning user preferences and acting as a personal matchmaker.
Furthermore, Herd shifted Bumble’s design concept completely, with the app now allowing men to send the first message instead of women.
With its origins in the Me Too movement, Bumble’s rise and fall represents a broader cultural shift away from the swiping trends that defined the 2010s.
“Universally, across cultures, ages, and languages, we were not made to be alone. We [were] meant to love and to be loved,” Herd said of her vision.
