Bumble Buyout: Ithaca Holdings Pays US$6.05 a Share, a 138% Premium

The Bumble buyout by Ithaca Holdings pays US$6.05 in cash for each Class A share, about US$1.3 billion in all, Bumble announced on Oct. 13. That is roughly a 138% premium to the Oct. 9 close and 119% to the 30-day volume-weighted average price. Shareholders don’t get a vote: affiliates of Blackstone and founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd have already approved the deal by written consent, and no closing date had been set as of Oct. 19.

Updated Oct. 19, 2026: As of Oct. 19, no closing date had been set, and our search of public filings turned up no Schedule 14C information statement or announced antitrust clearance yet. Several shareholder law firms, including Halper Sadeh on Oct. 18, say they are investigating whether US$6.05 is a fair price; none had announced a lawsuit.

Ithaca’s co-founders, Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, will become Bumble’s co-CEOs and work alongside Wolfe Herd, who stays actively involved. The company keeps its Austin headquarters and offices in London and New York, and its Bumble, Badoo and BFF apps, Yahoo Finance reported.

Bumble buyout terms: what shareholders get, and when

Bumble’s Form 8-K (on EDGAR) fills in what the press release leaves out. The merger agreement was signed on Oct. 12. Class A holders receive US$6.05 in cash; Class B shares get US$0.000001 each.

Closing still needs the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period to expire, other government clearances, and an information statement on Schedule 14C mailed to shareholders at least 20 days before the deal can close. Wolfe Herd and Beehive Holdings III are rolling their shares into the new parent rather than taking cash, according to the filing.

Working backward from the stated premium, the unaffected price was about US$2.54 a share (our calculation). Bumble’s stock jumped 57% to US$5.96 in premarket trading on Oct. 13, DealStreetAsia reported. That narrow gap to US$6.05 is the market saying it expects the deal to close.

Bumble also said it will file its third-quarter 10-Q by Nov. 9 and skip its usual earnings release and call.

Who is Ithaca Holdings?

The press release describes Ithaca as “a holding company for enduring, market-leading technology businesses.” Kirkland & Ellis, Ithaca’s lawyers, said its mission is to “apply frontier technology to renew and accelerate businesses.” Hegeman is a former chief revenue officer at Meta; Gupta is a former Sequoia Capital partner and an Instacart and Meta veteran, according to MediaPost. GuruFocus reported earlier this year, citing people familiar with the matter, that the pair were working to raise at least US$1 billion for a vehicle that would buy a business and rebuild its technology, including with AI.

Ithaca has not disclosed who backs it beyond the deal paperwork. The 8-K names Greenoaks Prime Radiant as the source of an equity commitment letter but gives no amount, and KKR Capital Markets is listed as Ithaca’s capital markets adviser. Bumble’s board committee used Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as financial advisers.

“Technology should work in service of our deepest source of fulfillment, human connection.” Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman, in Bumble’s release

The AI bet: can a swipe-free Bumble work in private?

Bumble is being bought from a weak position. Revenue fell 15.2% year over year in the second quarter to US$211 million and paying users dropped 16.4% to about 3.2 million, TechCrunch reported from Bumble’s Q2 results. The company went public in 2021 at a valuation of roughly US$14 billion. By the Oct. 12 close its market value was about US$582 million, per DealStreetAsia.

Wolfe Herd, who returned as CEO in March 2025, has said Bumble is developing a new interaction model that could eventually replace swiping, according to TechCrunch. Bumble also announced Plans, an app for real-world social events, in July. Neither the release nor the filing says what Ithaca will change.

Our read: going private removes the quarterly scoreboard that has punished every experiment. It also hands control of a women-first app to two operators best known for ad and marketplace machinery at Meta and Instacart. That tension is the story to watch. Grindr, by contrast, agreed to pay US$250 million for a PrEP clinic to find growth beyond the app; Bumble’s answer is a new owner instead.

What it means for you

• Shareholders: you don’t need to do anything. Watch for the Schedule 14C information statement; cash arrives at closing. Our guide to reading a company filing covers the sections that matter.
• Users: nothing changes at signing. The apps keep running and no product changes have been announced.

More deals are tracked in our business and startups coverage. The number to watch next is US$102 million: the fee Ithaca had to put in escrow by Oct. 19 under the merger agreement. Neither company had announced the deposit by that date.