Latest news with #Badoo
UPI
25-06-2025
- Business
- UPI
Dating app company Bumble cuts 30% of workforce in turnaround bid
Whitney Wolfe Herd arrives on the red carpet at the 2019 Time 100 Gala at Lincoln Center on April 23, 2019, in New York City. Earlier this year, she returned as CEO of Bumble. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo June 25 (UPI) -- Bumble, the company that produces the online dating app designed to empower women, on Wednesday announced it is laying off 30% of its staff in a bid to reverse financial problems. The company, which is based in Austin, Texas, announced the reduction of 240 positions at a saving of $40 million, with reinvestment of most of that money into product and technology development as it "realigns its operating structure to optimize execution on its strategic priorities," according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Bumble said it will incur $13 million to $18 million of nonrecurring charges, mainly related to severance, benefits and associated costs for affected employees in the third and fourth quarters of 2025. Bumble, which also runs Official, Badoo, Fruitz and other dating apps, announced it is increasing its second-quarter revenue forecast to $244 million to $249 million, up from the previously forecast $235 million to $243 million. In 2024, Bumble had revenue of $1.07 billion with a $557 million net loss. Bumb's stock price closed up 25.14% to $1.31 on NASDAQ. The stock had a high this year of $8.64 on Feb. 4. Its public offering was $76 per share in 2021. In February 2024, the company also cut 30% of its workforce. At the start of the year, Bumble announced that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd was returning as CEO in March after stepping down from the role in 2023 though she remained on the board of directors. She co-founded Bumble in 2014 and helped create another app, Tinder, in 2012 and left two years later. She filed sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits against Tinder, which later were settled. Match, which owns Tinder and Hinge, also has been struggling. In May, Match said it was laying off 13% of its staff to reduce costs and streamline its organizational structure in a struggle to attract and retain users, including young ones. Wolfe Herd said online dating is at an "inflection point." "The reality is, we need to take decisive action to restructure to build a company that's resilient, intentional and ready for the next decade," she wrote in an email to Bumble employees. It was a much different situation one year ago. Bumble was the most downloaded dating application in the United States with 735,000 downloads. "Bumble is designed to help you feel empowered while you make those connections, whether you're dating, looking for, according to Bumble's website. "On Bumble, women set the tone by making the first move or by setting an Opening Move for matches to reply to. Shifting old-fashioned power dynamics and encouraging equality from the start." Like with other dating apps, potential matches are displayed to users, who can "swipe left" to reject a candidate or "swipe right" to indicate interest. In February 2022, Bumble announced it had acquired Fruitz, a French-owned freemium dating app popular with Gen Z and used across Europe.
BBC News
25-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Bumble cuts almost a third of staff as dating app woes deepen
Dating app Bumble is axing almost a third of its workforce, as it struggles to grow and investors sour on its a note to staff, chief executive Whitney Wolfe Herd said she was responding to pressures facing the company, as the dating industry faces an "inflection point"."We need to take decisive action to restructure to build a company that's resilient, intentional, and ready for the next decade," she said. Founder Ms Wolfe Herd stepped down as boss of the firm last year, but returned in March in a bid to turn around its prospects. Bumble, which also owns Badoo, made its name as an app on which women were responsible for initiating contact. Only female users can make the first contact with matched male users, while in same-sex matches either person can send a message firm was valued at more than $13bn when it debuted on the stock exchange in 2021, making 35-year-old founder Ms Wolfe Herd the world's youngest self-made female its shares have lost almost all of their value since, and now trade for less than $7 each. Investors have soured on the dating sector, which has struggled to convince people to pay up for their services. At the end of last year, Bumble reported 4.1 million paying users across its apps, up roughly 11% year-on-year. But the firm's revenues grew less than 2% and it lost money. The company said the jobs cuts, which affect 240 positions, would help reduce expenses by $40m a year, which it will redirect to efforts such as technology firms in the industry, such as Match and Tinder, have faced similar struggles. Match said it was cutting 13% of jobs at last month. Shares in Bumble rose 20% after it announced the job cuts.
ABC News
23-06-2025
- ABC News
Man accused of sexually assaulting 11-year-old he met on dating app tells jury he didn't know she was underage
WARNING: This story contains details of child sexual abuse. A man on trial for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl has insisted he thought she was "a petite 19-year-old". Shegu Charles Bobb, 27, is facing a jury trial in the ACT Supreme Court for alleged sexual offences against the 11-year-old in February 2020. The pair met on a dating platform called Badoo when he was 21. During his cross examination, Mr Bobb said he thought the girl's small size and weight could have been due to an eating disorder and not because she was lying about her age. "I just thought she was a petite 19-year-old." Prosecutor Marcus Dyason pointed to inconsistencies in Mr Bobb's continued denials that he knew she was 11, and not 19. He suggested to Mr Bobb that when he sent the message "… can't believe you are that young" he "understood [he] was sending a message to an 11-year-old". Mr Bobb denied that. He said he had never encountered people lying about their age on online dating platforms, and that he had believed the girl was the age on her profile. But during Mr Dyason's questioning, Mr Bobb admitted he had previously lied about his own birth date in order to gain access to the dating platforms in 2014 and 2015. "So you do have experience of people lying about their age to get access to an 18 plus site when they aren't 18," Mr Dyason said. "Yes," Mr Bobb replied. Mr Bobb said he would have created those accounts with friends "for sh**s and gig[gle]s". Details of messages exchanged between Mr Bobb and the girl in the lead up to the alleged assaults were also read to the court. When asked why he had sent the message "how old are you" on Saturday February 22 while he was waiting in the car outside the girl's house, Mr Bobb said it was because he was surprised by how sexually "up front" their conversation was for someone who was 19. He agreed their plan was to have sex in his car, despite what he described as a "fairly huge age gap" due to their difference in life experience. They had exchanged explicit images and the girl had asked Mr Bobb to explain step-by-step the plan for their sexual encounter. But when the girl did not come outside to meet Mr Bobb on the Saturday, he said he drove home and continued messaging her that evening. The messages read out to the jury detailed their arrangements to meet the following day to have sex in the car at a location where they would not be caught. Mr Bobb said because he was black, he believed if the girl's parents or neighbours saw him in the area there would be suspicion, hence the plan to drive away from sight. When the girl messaged she was "scared" Mr Bobb said he replied "up to you" because he wanted to reassure her. "I wasn't forcing her," he said. He said he had met the girl near her home and she entered the car — which he was borrowing from his neighbour. During the drive, the girl allegedly "buried her head in her phone" and communicated by messaging on the Badoo app instead of verbally. Mr Bobb told the court he thought this was weird. He drove to a car park in Mount Stromlo where Mr Bobb said he told the girl to "get in the back", which is when many of the alleged offences occurred. He said he stopped when his phone began buzzing with notifications from the girl. "I verbally asked her, 'Can I touch you?' She nodded," he said. "My phone started buzzing … I looked at my phone and that's when I saw her texting, 'I can't, I can't'." Mr Bobb denied accusations that he had raped her, and that he threatened to kill her and her family. He said he let her out of the car and later texted her an apology because he "felt like [he] had scared her". "I was not apologising for any of the things she's now accusing me of, the sexual act that never happened. "Back then I guess I was just dumb and doing stuff, but I wouldn't go as far as doing this." The jury is expected to begin deliberations later in the week.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Miranda July, the problem with purity culture, and why a professor of fascism left the US
Top of the weekend to you all. It's all a bit grim out there – even State of Origin is struggling to hit its usual high notes. Here's the pick of what I've been reading to tune out. The US 'true love waits' movement was a phenomenon in the 1990s, inspiring Bill Clinton to spend tens of millions funding abstinence-only sex education. George W Bush doubled down, despite mounting evidence it didn't reduce teen sexual activity. Matt (not his real name), who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household of that time and was 'terrified' by the idea of sexual sin, had not had a relationship nor a sexual partner by his 40th birthday. He vented his frustration online. And of course, he was offered a solution: the Purity Culture Dropout Program. Policy failure? Seventeen US states still offer abstinence-only sex ed – and they have higher-than-average teen pregnancy rates. How long will it take to read: Ten minutes. Meanwhile, Tinder is trialling a height filter in some markets and the dating app's shorter in stature men are feeling aggrieved (though the app said profiles that don't match the selected height criteria will not be blocked outright). Discrimination, or a vital tool to help women satisfy an 'evolutionary drive' to find a taller partner? Leah Harper investigates. Keywords: According to the dating app Badoo, the top word in profiles for men to get matches is '6ft' – for women, it is 'love'. How long will it take to read: Five minutes. The US history professor Marci Shore, her husband and a colleague made headlines last month with what in ordinary times would be an innocuous move from Yale to the University of Toronto. Part of her reasoning – a fear the US is 'headed to civil war'. Shore argues Donald Trump has an approach to politics 'in which all of the ugliness is right on the surface'. But, in conversation with Jonathan Freedland, she offers the world the possibility of optimism. 'Without a distinction between truth and lies, there is no grounding for a distinction between good and evil.' How long will it take to read: Five minutes. Further reading: How Trump is propelling the US towards authoritarianism at an 'alarming speed'. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion Studies suggest cats and dogs are capable of reading human emotions. From not recognising what different cat miaows mean to assuming a dog who has just torn up a cushion feels guilt (rather than fear at their human's reaction), turns out we're not as advanced as our furry friends. Sam Pyrah – owner of Morris, her nomination for best dog in the world – asks the experts how we can be better. How long will it take to read: Ten minutes. Further reading: The raccoons that conquered a German city. In her hit novel All Fours, Miranda July's heroine blows up her life after an encounter with a young dancer on a road trip. July herself separated from her husband two years before the book's publication and has a child roughly the same age as the narrator's. So is All Fours real life, or just fantasy? As Zoe Williams discovers, even July's closest friends are fuzzy on the detail. Says the author of its creation: 'The joy of it, for me, was writing a thing I hadn't seen written about sex.' Sample reaction: One woman who nearly divorced her husband after reading it said: 'I think what I felt, which I think is what a lot of us feel, is permission to be undone.' How long will it take to read: Seven minutes. Enjoying the Five Great Reads email? Then you'll love our weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter, Saved for Later. Sign up here to catch up on the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture, trends and tips for the weekend. And check out the full list of our local and international newsletters.
ABC News
16-06-2025
- ABC News
Man accused of child sexual offences met 11-year-old alleged victim on dating app, ACT Supreme Court hears
WARNING: This story contains details of child sexual abuse. A man accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl he met on a dating app warned her to be careful about "creeps and stalkers" on the app, the ACT Supreme Court has heard. Prosecutors allege Shegu Bobb, who is standing trial for nine sexual offences against the girl, told her, "I'm not like that, trust me". The 27-year-old is accused of using the dating app Badoo to send sexual messages and pictures to the girl, who he matched with in February 2020 when he was 21. One of his first messages to her was, "How old are you?" according to texts read to the jury. The court heard the girl's profile listed her age as 19, and after a phone conversation with Mr Bobb — who went by the name Charles online — he continued to message her. Another message mentioned the "huge age gap" between them and his request for her to "tell no one". Mr Bobb has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include three counts of using a carriage service to procure child abuse material, two counts of indecency against a person under 16, two counts of using a carriage service to procure a child under 16, intercourse with a child under 16 and using a carriage service to transmit indecent communications. The court heard the pair exchanged sexual messages and photographs over several days, which are too graphic to publish, before planning to meet up in person. Many of the messages involved him promising to teach the girl how to have sex. It is alleged Mr Bobb picked the girl up in his car down the road of her family home because they were concerned about being seen by other people. "This will be our secret, tell no one," Mr Bobb said to the girl in a message read to the court. "It makes me look like I'm trying to kidnap you," he said in another. Prosecutors allege he drove the girl to a secluded bushland area in Stromlo, where they got into the back seat and he touched her thigh and genital area. It is alleged that while in the car, the girl communicated with Mr Bobb via the dating app's messenger service and repeatedly told him she was "scared" before later telling him that she "wasn't ready". "Please let me go home, if you don't I'll get you into trouble," the girl allegedly said. The court heard that the girl told her school friend and police about the incident the next day, but she lied and said that the man was a stranger in a car in her street and that he had threatened to kill or hurt her if she didn't come for a drive. The jury was shown a video of the girl's initial interview with police, and heard that her mother later found the dating app and its messages on her daughter's phone. Prosecutors argue that messages of apology by Mr Bobb to the girl after the incident amount to his consciousness of guilt. They also argue he made partial admissions to the alleged offending to a neighbour by saying he believed the girl was over 18 years old because the app only allowed for users 18 and older. The trial is expected to continue into next week.
