Bumble IPO could raise more than $1B for dating service

Feb 2, 2021

On the heels of private companies Robinhood and Databricks each raising $1 billion or more yesterday, Bumble is out with a new IPO filing this morning indicating that it wants to raise ten figures as well.

The relationship-finding service where women reach out first will go public on the heels of strong public debuts in December by companies like Airbnb, DoorDash and C3.ai and Qualtrics and Poshmark lighting the way in January.

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But at a range of $28 to $30 per share, is Bumble aiming high or low in its valuation and resulting multiples? (For more, check out our first-look at Bumble’s results here.)

Annoyingly, it’s a little tricky to figure out, as the company’s ownership structure and results are messy thanks to a majority-sale to Blackstone back in 2019. So this won’t be entirely clean or simple.

But we’ll get through it. Here’s what we want to know:

  • Simple and diluted valuations for Bumble at its current IPO price range
  • What sort of multiples Bumble expects public investors to pay for its shares
  • How those stack up compared to Match Group’s own numbers
  • And, finally, what the Bumble IPO could mean for dating and relationship-focused startups; could this IPO prove that there is lucrative space in the market for more dating products?

So let’s get to work, starting with Bumble’s valuation.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a very valuable bee?

Bumble’s simple valuation is just that to calculate, a doddle. At $28 to $30 per share, and Bumble noting that it expects to have 108,384,634 shares outstanding after its IPO, including its full underwriters’ option, the company would be worth $3.03 billion to to $3.25 billion.

But that’s actually a bit too simple. Bumble’s share count is actually quite a lot higher. For example, if we assume the “exchange of all Common Units held by the Pre-IPO Common Unitholders,” then the company’s share count rises to 189,548,952. At that share count, Bumble is worth $5.31 billion to $5.69 billion. That’s a lot more!

Now things get actually tricky. Our last share count did not take into its confines “any shares of Class A common stock issuable in exchange for as-converted Incentive Units or upon settlement of certain other interests.” So, what are those?

,Could this IPO prove that there is lucrative space in the market for more dating products?

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