Bumble Inc. is being taken private by newly formed firm Ithaca Holdings for $1.3 billion, a fraction of its value when it went public in 2021, after younger users began to sour on dating apps.
Ithaca Holdings will pay $6.05 per share, according to a statement Tuesday. Bloomberg reported on Monday that the two firms were in advanced talks about a sale. The deal price represents a 138% premium over Bumble’s closing share price on Friday, the last trading day before Bloomberg and other news outlets reported on a possible deal.
After the deal is completed, Ithaca Holdings’ two chief executive officers, Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, will become co-CEOs of Bumble. Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd will “remain actively involved with Bumble,” she said in the statement. The dating company will remain based in Austin with other major offices in London and New York.
The deal marks a dramatic turn for Bumble, which was valued at $14 billion when it went public more than five and a half years ago. The app was founded in 2014 by Wolfe Herd, a former Tinder cofounder, on the premise that only women could make the first move on the app. But Bumble, like many of its dating-app peers, has suffered user declines as young people have grown fatigued with online dating.
In August, Bumble ditched the women-go-first model, its latest move to boost user engagement. The company this year also introduced an artificial intelligence-powered assistant designed to act as a personal matchmaker, offering an alternative experience to swiping through user profiles.