After declining a $450m offer in August this year, Bumble have reentered talks with Match Group centred around a valuation of well over $1billion.
This new figure is more in line with expectations at Bumble – at the time of the previous offer, sources close to the company revealed that $1billion was the actual value of the app.
The move shows real determination from Match Group, who have more than doubled their original offer.
TechCrunch reports that: “it’s unlikely to be an all-cash deal unless the company funds it via debt. Other options generally available are a cash/stock deal or even a partial acquisition or investment.”
The motivation for an acquisition may be to recapture young, educated users. Bumble is enjoying success among graduate millennials – a demographic that served Tinder well in its early days, but has since begun looking elsewhere.
Any deal will see Bumble founder & CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd being bought out by the company she sued in 2014.
Herd sued Tinder and Match Group over claims she was the victim of sexual harassment during her tenure as Tinder’s VP of marketing.
The suit was eventually settled out of court in September 2014.
When approached by TechCrunch, both Bumble and Match Group declined to comment.