Whitney Wolfe Herd Hints at Openness to Facebook Acquisition

Bumble CEO and Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has hinted at the potential for Bumble to be acquired by Facebook in a TechCrunch interview.

The comments came as she was following up on Bumble’s official statement, which welcomed Facebook to the sector and hoped for collaboration between the two companies.

Wolfe Herd said: “[Facebook Dating] is actually super exciting for the industry, because if you look at the history of Facebook when it comes to building their own products versus acquiring, they oftentimes attempt to build their own.

“If those products don’t successfully come to market, there’s usually a transition into acquisition. Who knows what will happen?”

She also said: “If the right opportunity presents itself, we’ll absolutely explore that and we’ll absolutely always explore the best way to take what we’re trying to do and what our mission is and what our values are.

“If we can be acquired, that will help us scale 10 times faster and that’s something that’s interesting to us, right?”

Any potential acquirer would need to bring “intellectual capital” and “knowledge of new markets”, according to Wolfe Herd.

The interview also delves into the history of Bumble, noting how it was originally intended to be a social network focused on empowerment.

Badoo’s Andrey Andreev shifted the focus – his offer to back Bumble and provide technical expertise only stood if the brand would pivot to dating.

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