Bumble's founder came back and is taking it private.

I know what your wondering? Is Whitney married herself and did she meet Mr Right "on line".

She is hitched to Micheal Herd, a successful oil guy apparently worth over $100 million. Did they meet on line? NO! They met the old fashioned way...in person (ski trip introduced by a mutual friend).

BTW: I read the Spritzler Report every day. I eat my own cooking.

Dating-App Company Bumble in Advanced Talks to Go Private at $1 Billion Valuation

Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd expected to stay involved with company as part of deal

By Cara Lombardo, WSJ

Updated Oct. 12, 2026 4:15 pm ET

Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of the dating app Bumble Gary He for WSJ

Bumble, the dating-app company founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd, is in advanced talks to be taken private in a deal that values it at roughly $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The details

The buyer is Ithaca Holdings, a firm founded recently by two Silicon Valley executives, the people said. Bumble would be one of the first major moves for Ithaca, which plans to apply advanced technologies including artificial intelligence to its investments.

Bumble had a market value of around $335 million as of Friday’s close. Its shares have dropped over 90% since it went public in 2021. The shares were briefly halted Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported on the deal talks and then jumped around 50%, giving it a market value of around $580 million.

Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014 after having co-founded Match Group’s Tinder. She is expected to roll at least part of her stake in the dating app as part of the deal and remain involved with the company, the people said.

Private-equity firm Blackstone was one of Bumble’s early backers and bought a majority stake in 2019. It sold much of its stake down following Bumble’s IPO but still owns a roughly 14% stake, according to FactSet.

A deal could come as soon as this week, assuming talks don’t fall apart.

The context

When Wolfe Herd founded Bumble, she sought to turn the traditional dating dynamic on its head by creating a platform on which women initiate conversations. The idea created buzz, with the company’s market value peaking at above $14 billion following its IPO.

But Bumble and other dating-app companies including Match Group have struggled as younger users are increasingly turned off by online dating platforms. Wolfe Herd returned as Bumble’s CEO in 2025, and a few months later the company laid off roughly 30% of its staff.

At Match, increased revenue from the dating app Hinge partly offset roughly flat revenue from Tinder, its largest app, in the second quarter. At Bumble, meanwhile, both Bumble and Badoo, the company’s other app, reported revenue drops. Both companies have been more deeply integrating AI into their businesses. In August, Bumble said it would drop its women-first messaging feature.

Ithaca, which says on its website its mission is to “use frontier technology to build products to meaningfully improve people’s lives,” was founded by Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman. Gupta is a partner at venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital and the former chief financial officer of Instacart. Hegeman is a former executive of Meta, where he was most recently chief revenue officer.