AKRON, Ohio — Bumble is in advanced talks to be taken private by Ithaca Holdings in a deal valued at about $1 billion, multiple business news outlets reported Monday.
Neither company has confirmed an agreement.
Bumble went public in 2021 at a valuation of about $14 billion. The app generated $966 million in revenue in 2025, down nearly 10 percent from the year before, and it ended 2025 with 3.7 million paying users, a decline of more than 11 percent over the year. Before the report, the company’s market value stood at about $389 million.
Shares jumped roughly 50 percent to $3.80 on Monday.
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said by phone from a bowling alley that the arrangement was consistent with the principles of the industry. “The buyers have already matched with every member. That is not a conflict of interest. That is a shared interest,” Brickhouse said. “It’s just common sense.”
Marisa Dorn, 29, a paying member in Akron, Ohio, said she had learned of the talks from a news alert on her phone, which she had turned on for the first time in March. She said she pays to be looked at and was not sure what the new arrangement would change.
“I have been on this app for four years, and everybody on it has, at some point, liked everybody else,” Dorn said. “Now a company is going to like all of us for a billion dollars. I would like to see the receipt, but I also think I already know what it says.”
“I just want to know if I still get the little notification when someone likes me,” she said. “I have been getting it for four years, and it is the only thing I have ever been sure of.”
Glenn Whitacre, reached by phone, filing from a rental car in an airport parking structure. The call dropped twice, and the parking ticket machine would not accept his card.