Dating app Bumble (BMBL) turned a few heads Thursday with its initial public offering that widely exceeded expectations and raised $2.15 billion. The Bumble IPO jumped by double digits as trading began.
Bumble stock jumped 78%, near 76.80, during afternoon trading on the stock market today, under the ticker BMBL.
The company offered 50 million shares, which they raised from 45 million, at $43. That came in $4 above the high end of its upwardly revised range. Before that, it initially planned to offer 34.5 million shares at a price range of $28 to $30. It received a market valuation of $8.2 billion.
What makes Bumble different from a bevy of other dating apps is that women initiate the contact.
“The Bumble brand was built with women at the center — where women make the first move,” the Bumble IPO filing says. “We are rewriting the script on gender norms by building a platform that is designed to be safe and empowering for women, and, in turn, provides a better environment for everyone.”
Bumble IPO Financial Data
The company operates two dating apps, Bumble and Badoo, which together draw more than 40 million users a month, it says. In addition, it says Bumble and Badoo are two of the highest-grossing online dating mobile applications globally, as of August 2020.
For the first nine months of 2020, Bumble reported revenue of $413 million, according to the Bumble IPO filing. with a loss of $28 million.
Among its competitors is Match Group (MTCH). It owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid and Hinge. Match is trading near its record highs and has a market value near $45 billion. Match shares were down 1%, near 169.60, in morning trading on the stock market today.
Revenue Sources For Bumble
Although Bumble is free to use, the company generates revenue when customers purchase premium subscriptions. Those services give customers the ability to boost their profiles’ reach or see who’s already liked them on the app. The company also generates some revenue from advertising and partnerships.
The company had 2.4 million paying users at the end of the third quarter, up from 2.1 million a year ago.
Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble after co-founding the dating app Tinder. Match, which now owns Tinder, sued Bumble in 2018 alleging patent and trademark infringement. The parties settled the suit.
The lead underwriters for the Bumble IPO include Goldman Sachs, Citi and Morgan Stanley.
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