Bumble Agrees to $1.3 Billion Buyout by Ithaca Holdings, Ending Its Bruising Run as a Public Company

Under the terms announced on Tuesday, Bumble shareholders will receive $6.05 per share, a premium of about 138% over the stock’s closing price on October 9. The deal was first telegraphed on Monday, when reports surfaced that Bumble was nearing an agreement to leave the public markets.

The transaction marks a dramatic fall for a company once seen as one of online dating’s great success stories. Bumble was valued at roughly $14 billion when it went public in February 2021, built on the women-first formula that made founder Whitney Wolfe Herd famous.

Even with the generous premium, the $1.3 billion valuation is a fraction of what investors once believed Bumble was worth. The stock surged roughly 57% to about $5.98 on the news, its biggest single-day percentage gain since the 2021 listing, after jumping nearly 50% the day before on reports of the pending deal.

The all-cash buyout was recommended by an independent special committee of Bumble’s board and approved unanimously, with Wolfe Herd recusing herself from the discussions and vote. Affiliates of Blackstone, a major Bumble shareholder, have already consented to the transaction.

Once the deal closes, Ithaca co-founders and co-CEOs Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman will become co-CEOs of Bumble. Gupta is a former Instacart chief operating officer and a former Sequoia Capital partner, while Hegeman served as chief revenue officer of Meta until earlier this year. Wolfe Herd said she would remain actively involved in the company.

Bumble’s troubles have been building for years. The company reported revenue of $211 million for the second quarter of 2026, a 15.2% decline from a year earlier, while its paying user base shrank 16.4% to about 3.2 million.

Younger users in particular have grown tired of endless swiping. The dating industry as a whole has been under pressure to offer more meaningful connections, and Bumble has responded by dismantling its own founding formula.

In August, the company ditched the rule that only women could send the first message, and earlier this year it introduced an AI-powered matchmaking assistant as an alternative to browsing profiles.

Wolfe Herd, who co-founded Tinder before launching Bumble in 2014, returned as CEO last year to lead the turnaround. She has also pushed the Plans feature, launched in July, which steers users toward meeting through real-world activities rather than endless chats.

Ithaca is a newly formed holding company whose stated mission is to use advanced technology to renew established businesses. Wolfe Herd said the buyer shares Bumble’s women-first mission and is committed to investing in its future.

Going private could give Bumble the breathing room to rebuild its products without the pressure of quarterly earnings. The company said it will skip its usual third-quarter earnings release and investor call, reporting only through its SEC filings as it works toward closing the deal.

Still, the buyout caps a bruising chapter rather than opening a triumphant one. Whether a private Bumble can turn dating fatigue back into growth will depend on one thing: building experiences people actually want to come back to.