In , Tinder released its paid service, Tinder Plus, a feature allowing unlimited matches, whereas the free Tinder app limits the number of right swipes in a 12-hour period.
Magic Lab
Initially, Andrey Andreev, CEO Founder of Badoo, invested in Bumble when it was founded. In 2019 Andrey Andreev sold his entire stake in MagicLab, the company that owned both Bumble and Badoo (and other dating apps), to Blackstone. He stepped away from the business in the process, and Wolfe Herd, Bumble’s founder, became the CEO of the whole company, retaining much of her stake in the business in the process. The deal valued Bumble and the wider business – which is profitable – at $3 billion.
Almost exactly a year before, Andrey Andreev talked about a future IPO for Badoo in the U.S., listing on Nasdaq. At the time, the company also included the eponymous Badoo app, which itself now has 450 million users, as well as several others targeting more specific communities (for example, older people), and it was altogether expecting to make some $400 million in revenues in 2018. Before that, Badoo had reportedly turned down a $450 million offer for Bumble from Match (some have reported that Match might have offered as much as $1 billion or more for it).
In , Whitney Wolfe Herd revealed plans to replace the MagicLab name with Bumble’s, as the company looks to reorganize and unify its overall mission. The move would see Bumble become the parent company of Badoo, a complete role reversal from when the female-first dating app was initially launched as part of the Badoo group.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Bumble is preparing for an IPO that could be worth between $6 billion and $8 billion. The company is expected to go public in early 2021.
Badoo
Badoo is a dating-focused social network founded by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev in 2006. It is headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus, and London, United Kingdom, with offices in Malta, Russia, and the United States. It operates in 190 countries and is available in 47 different languages.
Badoo had 12 million users by 2007. Then the founder sold part of his stake for $30 million. Sometime later, Finam bought another 10%. While the buy price was much higher, the trade value was never disclosed. In 2011, the dating website was named one of the most successful social media platforms worldwide. Wired described Badoo as a “mass phenomenon” in Brazil, Mexico, France, Spain, and Italy. In 2016 it was the most-downloaded dating app in 21 countries.
Today the number of Badoo users is more than 418 million. The most active countries are Italy, Brazil, Spain, France, and Poland.
On , Facebook threatened to close Badoo if it did not become less viral. It had to do it and became less viral.
It seems that Badoo acquired much of its audience from Facebook. It is understood that Badoo gained its 160-million users from two primary sources:
- The first 15 million users were acquired from Mamba.
- One hundred million more were acquired from Facebook.
- Facebook presented a feature in API that allowed applications to publish notes to friends? walls.
- Badoo quickly understood this opportunity.
- The Badoo team created an https://datingranking.net/dine-app-review/ app that automatically posts notes to a user’s friends when answering questions about them inside the application.
- Facebook demanded that Badoo make the app less viral on ,
- Badoo fulfilled Facebook’s requirements and, under the questions, displayed a tick box with the option “Publish to your friend’s wall,” but made the message gray. If the user removes the tick, then Badoo shows the following question:
