Austin-based dating and networking app company Bumble is heading into Valentine's Day season with even more ambition than previously thought.
The company Feb. 8 filed paperwork indicating it will sell 45 million shares of its stock at $37 to $39 per share. With that, the company could raise $1.8 billion through its forthcoming initial public offering. Meanwhile, the pricing means that Bumble, founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, has a valuation of $7 billion to $8 billion.
The new federal filing is a significant increase from a filing a last week indicating the company would sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30.
The company hasn't set a date to begin trading yet, although Bloomberg has reported it will begin trading Feb. 11.
Investment firm Blackstone is currently Bumble's majority shareholder. The new filing shows that after the IPO, Blackstone will own 60% of the company and Wolfe Herd will own about 11% of outstanding shares, although those percentages could change if underwriters exercise their options to buy up to 6.75 million additional shares.
The filing notes that Bumble had more than 650 full-time employees as of Sept. 30. About half of them work in engineering and product development. Roughly 560 of those employees are outside of the U.S. As part of the offering, the company is requiring its president, Tariq Shaukat, and its chief financial officer, Anuradha Subramanian, to relocate to Austin, the filing shows.
Bumble, which is known for having women make the first move on its dating app, reported having 42.1 million monthly active users as of September. It also reported it had $360.1 million in revenue in 2018 and $488.9 million in 2019 — a 35% increase. Bumble also operates dating app Badoo, which launched in 2006 and is used widely in Europe and Latin America.
From Jan. 29, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2020, Bumble recorded nearly $376.6 million in revenue. For the same period, it had a net loss of $84.1 million, compared with positive net earnings of $68.6 million for the first nine months of 2019, according to the filing. Part of the reason for that major swing appears to be a significant jump in general and administrative expenses, which totaled $128.1 million for the 2020 period, versus $47.3 million for the first three quarters of 2019.
Bumble's IPO is seen as both a significant boost to the Austin tech and startup scene and for women founders everywhere. The company is now one of several women-led organizations in Austin valued at more than $1 billion. Kendra Scott recently dropped her CEO title but remains executive chairwoman of her eponymous jewelry company, which was valued at more than $1 billion a few years ago and has only grown since then. Digital health startup Everlywell, led by CEO and founder Julia Cheek, was valued at $1.3 billion when it raised $175 million in December, while WP Engine Inc. has continued to evolve under the leadership of CEO Heather Brunner and now has more than 150,000 customers.
Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD) CEO Lisa Su, who lives in Austin, was the top-paid chief executive in the S&P 500 in 2019, with a total compensation package valued at $58.5 million, according to an annual survey by the Associated Press. It marked the first time a woman topped that ranking.
