Bumble Is Laying Off 30% of Its Staff: 'Our Path Forward Is Clear' Bumble's most recent quarterly earnings report showed that revenue declined 7.7% year-over-year.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Bumble is reducing its workforce by almost a third to save up to $40 million, the company said.
- The reductions will impact about 240 roles and will take place in the latter half of the year.
- Despite a disappointing first quarter, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd says the company is on the right track.
Dating app company Bumble is laying off 30% of staff, or nearly one in three employees.
In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted earlier this week, Bumble disclosed that it was reducing its global workforce by approximately 240 roles in the latter half of the year.
The company expects to spend $13 million to $18 million on severance payments and benefits for impacted employees. However, the layoffs will result in up to $40 million in annual cost savings, the company claims. According to the filing, Bumble intends to reinvest "the substantial majority of these savings" in initiatives like "product and technology development."
The last time Bumble had a round of layoffs was in January 2024, when the company reduced its workforce by around 30%, or 350 employees at the time.
Bumble shares were up over 20% following the news of workforce reductions.
Also in the filing, Bumble increased its revenue forecast for the current quarter. The dating app company updated its second-quarter revenue forecast to a range of $244 million to $249 million, up from the previous prediction of $235 million to $243 million.
The layoffs arrive months after Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returned to the company as CEO. Wolfe Herd founded the app in 2014 and served as CEO from January 2020 to January 2024. Lidiane Jones, who was previously the CEO of workplace messaging app Slack, took over as CEO of Bumble from January 2024 to March 2025 before stepping down for "personal reasons." Wolfe Herd stepped back in, rejoining the company as CEO in March.
"Bumble needs me back," Wolfe Herd said in an interview last month with The New York Times. "Watching it fall from its peak has been very hard."
Related: Former Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Surprises Employees With Full Week Off
Bumble went public in 2021. Its market value has plummeted from $7.7 billion in early 2021 to about $661 million at the time of writing. Low user retention and fewer paying users have led to decreased revenue, causing the app to decline, per Business Insider.
Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Last month, Bumble released its most recent earnings report for the first quarter of the year. The report was disappointing: total revenue decreased 7.7% year-over-year to $247 million, with Bumble app revenue dropping 6.5% to $202 million, and Bumble app paying users decreasing 1% to 2.7 million users.
Wolfe Herd reassured investors in the report that Bumble is on "an accelerated path to return to sustainable, long-term growth" with "more quality and relevant matches" for users.
"Our path forward is clear," Wolfe Herd stated in the report.
