Bumble operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo.
Gabby Jones/BloombergDating-app operator Bumble made its much-anticipated public-markets debut with shares soaring 64% in its first day of trading.
Four other companies also began trading Thursday. Signify Health, a healthcare platform; Apria, which offers home healthcare equipment; loanDepot,, which sells mortgage products; and medical-device company Bioventus also opened for trading.
Shares of Bumble opened at $76, peaked at $79.60 and closed at $70.31, for a gain of nearly 64% relative to the IPO price.
“We are thrilled with the IPO, particularly with the vote of confidence from the investors we’ve met with and how much they have bought into [our] purpose and mission in building healthy and equitable relationships. It’s a testament to the users who have built Bumble over the years,” said Tariq Shaukat, Bumble’s president, in an interview.
The strong performance came after Bumble delivered the day’s biggest deal when it sold 50 million shares at $43 each, raising $2.2 billion. It had initially filed to sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30 each. It boosted its offering earlier this week to 45 million shares at $37 to $39 each. Bumble trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol BMBL. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are underwriters on the deal.
CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014. The start-up calls itself a “women-first” dating app because it allows women to make the first move. Women, once they match with someone, have 24 hours to start a conversation with their “target.”
Bumble operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo. More than 40 million users visit the apps each month to connect with new people. Bumble had 12.3 million monthly active users as of Sept. 30, while Badoo had 28.4 million, according to Sensor Tower data.
Bumble has seen a deepening of engagement as the pandemic continues, making it hard for people to meet in person. “Both of our brands under the Bumble umbrella are serving a need that is urgent and global and growing very quickly,” Shaukat said. “It’s an opportune moment for us to keep up with that growth.”
The company plans to use proceeds from the IPO to pay down debt and to fund growth, Shaukat said. Bumble will be looking to invest in its core markets but also taking a more global and aggressive expansion path for the Bumble app, he said. “We’ve seen a lot of traction in India, Germany and Mexico but we’re just scratching the surface,” said Shaukat, who noted Bumble has 100,000 active users in Mexico.
Bumble is also seeing increasing demand on the “friend” side of its app, which refers to users who just want to meet people platonically. This can be new mothers who want to meet other moms or users who want to make “yoga friends,” Shaukat said. Bumble receives north of 12 million active monthly users; about 9% is for “Bumble BFF,” he said.
“Success for us is no longer just using the date side [of Bumble] but using our friendship or the professional side of our services,” Shaukat told Barron’s.
Blackstone Group (ticker: BX) acquired a majority stake in Bumble in November 2019 at a $3 billion valuation. Blackstone will have 82.5% of combined voting power in Bumble after the IPO. Wofe Herd will have 14.4%, according to the prospectus.
Write to Luisa Beltran at luisa.beltran@dowjones.com
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Bumble Opens for Trading With Shares Rising as Much as 85% - Barron's
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