Dating app Bumble bought for $1.3bn

JUST IN: Dating app Bumble has been bought by technology investment firm Ithaca Holdings for $1.3 billion, with plans to take it into the "next era" of dating in a world transformed by AI.

Bumble just sold for 1.3 billion dollars, and that number should sting.

This is the app that floated on the Nasdaq in 2021 at a valuation north of 14 billion. Five years later, Ithaca Holdings is carrying it out the door for less than a tenth of that. The buyers say they'll take Bumble into the next era of dating in a world transformed by AI, which is a bold promise for a business that's turned a pre-tax profit exactly once as a public company.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder who built the whole brand on women making the first move, stays actively involved, whatever that ends up meaning. The famous rule itself got scrapped in August, and plenty of users asked what was left once it went.

The shares jumped more than fifty percent on the news. When a fifty percent pop still leaves you 95 percent below your peak, that's the whole story.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.