Bumble Releases ‘Spotlight’ Feature to Prioritise Profiles

13th February 2019 Scott Harvey

Bumble has announced the rollout of a new feature analogous to Tinder Boost. ‘Spotlight’ will let users promote their profile at the top of the card deck for 30 minutes.

Spotlight is priced at two in-app currency coins (one coin is priced at $0.99 in the US, but £1.99 in the UK). One Tinder Boost is £3.89 in the UK, but they can also be bulk bought for less in packs of five or ten.

Users who have Bumble Spotlight activated will not appear any differently on the screens of those browsing, but on their own screen they will see stars across the top of the app.

The feature has been in testing for some time – users on Reddit noticed the functionality around one month ago.

Bumble and Tinder are currently embroiled in multiple IP lawsuits. Tinder claims Bumble copied its swipe-based interface, while Bumble claims Match Group used acquisition talks as a guise to misappropriate trade secrets.

This latest feature will no doubt add to the controversy. Hey Vina, a friendship app that counts Tinder among its investors, has already called out Bumble for infringing upon its feature idea.

In an email to TechCrunch, CEO Olivia June said: “Vina launched the ‘Spotlight’ feature version of Tinder Boost a month ago (…) I just wanted to point this out given that the feature is so similar to ours, that they named it the same as ours, and that Vina (being Tinder’s move in the friendship space) launched before Bumble BFF.”

Match Group stock is currently surging, after positive Q4 results and early wins in its legal disputes. Match Counsel Jared Sine has just been awarded General Counsel of the Year by Outstanding Corporate Counsel for his efforts.

Bumble is reportedly deep in NASDAQ IPO talks, meanwhile. In December, analyst Stephen Karmazyn claimed that Bumble going public could be one of the tech sector’s strongest IPOs in 2019.