Bumble is breaking up with the Nasdaq. According to a report from Reuters, the floundering dating app has accepted a $1.3 billion bid from Ithaca Holdings to go private, taking the company off the market as it and its many rivals struggle to figure out how to get Gen Zers and Gen Alpha to care about dating again.

The deal will see the shareholders of Bumble get a cool $6.05 per share, which Bloomberg reported is about a 138% premium on its most recent closing share price—but is still down quite a bit from the company’s $13 billion valuation when it first went public back in 2021. Unfortunately for Bumble, that’s about when the public’s love affair with it ended, and it’s been largely getting negged by the market ever since.

That’s not entirely Bumble’s fault, either (though, frankly, it was pretty wild that anyone thought that the “women go first” thing was enough of a differentiator to justify a multi-billion-dollar valuation). The dating app market has been a bad business to be in for years now. Usage of the apps has been on the decline, with prospective daters dealing with burnout and a growing disinterest in paying for a subscription just to endlessly swipe. A recent 2026 Harris Poll found that about two-thirds of singles say they aren’t even bothering with setting up profiles, finding the platforms too transactional and cringey.

Bumble perhaps contributed to that, but it also tried really hard to stave off the decline. ” It even fully abandoned its “women go first” rule , which kinda just turned it into Tinder but with a yellow paint job instead of a red one.

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