Dating apps and other social friend finders are coming into focus: The dating app giant Bumble wants to make further acquisitions. The company said during its first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that it plans to use mergers and acquisitions “opportunistically” to better prioritize inorganic growth.
Unlike its competitor Match, which has a history of acquiring both popular dating app brands, Bumble hasn’t been very active in pursuing growth through mergers and acquisitions. Its first acquisition was with French dating app Fruitz in February 2022, followed by couples app Official in 2023 for $10 million. None of them have become, to put it kindly, the next Tinder.
Now Bumble says it will look to acquire other companies that align with its growth goals. Specifically, CFO Anu Subramanian said on the call that the company, now under new leadership (CEO Lidiane Jones joined Bumble from Slack late last year), will set an “even higher bar” for what M&A at Bumble looks like and what Objectives it pursues for investments in acquisitions that drive inorganic growth.
In another statement, Jones said Bumble would consider the “added value” of the technology that an acquisition would bring as well as its business. In other words, it could acquire a smaller app if it does something particularly innovative that Bumble could use or invest in in its apps. However, she gave no indication that the company is considering any specific regions, market segments or use cases.
“There are certainly a lot of interesting technology companies in the industry that we’re constantly keeping an eye on, but we’re immediately looking at whether they’re actually aligned and accelerating with our long-term mission here,” Jones said. This appears to create a broad stage for potential candidates.
Bumble reported a strong first quarter, significantly beating analysts’ average expectations for both profit and revenue. The company reported net income of 19 cents per share on revenue of $267.8 million for the quarter. Analysts had estimated profit of 7 cents per share and revenue of $265.5 million.
The company also announced last week the revamp of its flagship dating app, which will now allow women to choose from pre-written questions for their partners to respond to, rather than messaging the partners themselves. Additionally, Bumble spoke again about its broader plans for BFF, which it says will be a way to help Gen Z users find friends.
Jones also discussed the company’s plans to use generative AI, noting that the technology could help in areas such as profiling, understanding customer intent, promoting trust and security, improving matches, and more.
“…our job as we look at generative AI is to build a premium dating service level of experience where we really take a more narrow approach to supporting you throughout your entire dating journey,” Jones added . “Even though we get more signals for our customers once they go on a date, we can again automatically improve their profiling without them having to go back,” she said.