Bumble is an online dating application. Profiles of potential matches are displayed to users, who can “swipe left” to reject a candidate bumble bee smoked oysters “swipe right” to indicate interest.
In heterosexual matches, only female users can make the first contact with matched male users, while in same-sex matches either person can send a message first. Bumble was founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd shortly after she left Tinder. Wolfe Herd has described Bumble as a “feminist dating app”. Whitney Wolfe Herd, an early VP of Marketing of Tinder, founded Bumble shortly after leaving Tinder.
The company headquarters are in Austin, Texas and as of 2021 had 650 employees globally. In March 2016, Bumble released BFF mode as a way for users to find platonic friends. In February 2022, Bumble announced it had acquired Fruitz – a French-owned freemium dating app popular with Gen Z and used across Europe. This was the company’s first acquisition. Formerly, Bumble users were required to log in via Facebook when signing up. In April 2018, Bumble added an option to sign up using only a phone number, following Facebook’s involvement in a controversy with Cambridge Analytica.