Bumble Inc. - Annual Report: 2022 (Form 10-K)

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022

OR

Commission File Number 001-40054

Bumble Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (512) 696-1409

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☒

As of June 30, 2022, which was the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, the market value of the shares of the registrant’s Class A common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $2,409,772,587 based upon the closing price of $28.15 per share as reported by The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC on that date.

As of January 31, 2023, Bumble Inc. had 130,169,045 shares of Class A common stock, par value $0.01 per share, outstanding and 20 shares of Class B common stock, par value $0.01 per share, outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Table of Contents

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CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K, or this Annual Report, contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management of Bumble Inc. with respect to, among other things, its operations, its financial performance and its industry. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “outlook,” “believe(s),” “expect(s),” “potential,” “continue(s),” “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “seek(s),” “predict(s),” “intend(s),” “trends,” “plan(s),” “estimate(s),” “anticipates,” “projection,” “will likely result” and or the negative version of these words or other comparable words of a future or forward-looking nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, there are or will be important factors that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. These factors include but are not limited to those described in Part I, “Item 1A—Risk Factors”. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included in this Annual Report. Bumble Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law.

ABOUT THIS ANNUAL REPORT

Financial Statement Presentation

This Annual Report includes certain historical consolidated financial and other data for Buzz Holdings L.P., a Delaware limited partnership (“Bumble Holdings”). Bumble Holdings was formed primarily as a vehicle to finance the acquisition (the “Sponsor Acquisition”) on January 29, 2020 of a majority stake in Worldwide Vision Limited by a group of investment funds managed by The Blackstone Group Inc. (“Blackstone”). As Bumble Holdings did not have any previous operations, Worldwide Vision Limited, a Bermuda exempted limited company, and its subsidiaries (the “Predecessor”) is viewed as the predecessor to Bumble Holdings and its consolidated subsidiaries (the “Successor”).

On January 29, 2020, Worldwide Vision Limited was merged via a solvent transfer of trade and assets into Buzz Merger Sub Limited, a Bermuda limited company and indirect subsidiary of Bumble Holdings, which carried forward and continued to operate the Worldwide Vision Limited trade as of that date. As a result, on January 29, 2020, Worldwide Vision Limited ceased to exist and Buzz Merger Sub Limited was subsequently renamed Worldwide Vision Limited. On September 9, 2020, Worldwide Vision Limited merged with and into Buzz Finco L.L.C., a Delaware limited liability company and an indirect subsidiary of Bumble Holdings., with Buzz Finco L.L.C. surviving such merger.

Bumble Inc. was incorporated as a Delaware corporation on October 5, 2020. Prior to the completion of its initial public offering (the “IPO”) on February 16, 2021, Bumble Inc. undertook certain reorganization transactions (the “Reorganization Transactions”) such that Bumble Inc. is now a holding company, and its sole material asset is a controlling equity interest in Bumble Holdings. As the general partner of Bumble Holdings, Bumble Inc. now operates and controls all of the business and affairs of Bumble Holdings, has the obligation to absorb losses and receive benefits from Bumble Holdings and, through Bumble Holdings and its subsidiaries, conduct its business. As a result, the consolidated financial statements of Bumble Inc. will recognize the assets and liabilities received in the Reorganization Transactions at their historical carrying amounts, as reflected in the historical financial statements of Bumble Holdings. Bumble Inc. will consolidate Bumble Holdings on its consolidated financial statements and record a non-controlling interest, related to the Common Units (as defined below) and the Incentive Units (as defined below) held by its pre-IPO owners, on its consolidated balance sheet and statement of operations.

Bumble Inc. had no significant business transactions or activities prior to the Reorganization Transactions, and, as a result, the historical financial information reflects that of Bumble Holdings.

Certain Definitions

As used in this Annual Report, unless otherwise noted or the context requires otherwise:

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RISK FACTOR SUMMARY

An investment in shares of our Class A common stock involves substantial risks and uncertainties that may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and cash flows. Some of the more significant challenges and risks relating to an investment in our Company are summarized below. The following is only a summary of the principal risks that may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. The following should be read in conjunction with the more complete discussion of the risk factors we face, which are set forth in Part I, “Item 1A— Risk Factors” in this Annual Report.

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Market and Industry Data

This Annual Report includes market and industry data and forecasts that we have derived from independent consultant reports; publicly available information; various industry publications; other published industry sources; and our internal data and estimates. In addition, this Annual Report includes market and industry data derived from data.ai (formerly App Annie), Sensor Tower, and the following study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (“PNAS”): Michael J. Rosenfeld, Reuben J. Thomas,

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and Sonia Hausen. 2019. “Disintermediating your Friends: How online dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:17753–17758. Independent consultant reports, industry publications and other published industry sources generally indicate that the information contained therein was obtained from sources believed to be reliable.

Although we believe that these third-party sources are reliable, we do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of this information, and we have not independently verified this information. Some market data and statistical information are also based on our good faith estimates, which are derived from management’s knowledge of our industry and such independent sources referred to above. Certain market, ranking and industry data included elsewhere in this Annual Report, including the size of certain markets and our size or position and the positions of our competitors within these markets, including our services relative to our competitors, are based on estimates of our management. These estimates have been derived from our management’s knowledge and experience in the markets in which we operate, as well as information obtained from surveys, reports by market research firms, our customers, distributors, suppliers, trade and business organizations and other contacts in the markets in which we operate and have not been verified by independent sources. Unless otherwise noted, all of our market share and market position information presented in this Annual Report is an approximation. Our market share and market position in each of our lines of business, unless otherwise noted, is based on our sales relative to the estimated sales in the markets we served. References herein to our being a leader in a market or product category refer to our belief that we have a leading market share position in each specified market, unless the context otherwise requires. As there are no publicly available sources supporting this belief, it is based solely on our internal analysis of our sales as compared to our estimates of sales of our competitors. In addition, the discussion herein regarding our various end markets is based on how we define the end markets for our products, which products may be either part of larger overall end markets or end markets that include other types of products and services.

Our internal data and estimates are based upon information obtained from trade and business organizations and other contacts in the markets in which we operate and our management’s understanding of industry conditions. Although we believe that such information is reliable, we have not had this information verified by any independent sources.

Projections, assumptions and estimates of the future performance of the markets in which we operate and our future performance are necessarily subject to uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in Part I, “Item 1A— Risk Factors”. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent sources and by us.

Trademarks, Service Marks and Copyrights

We own or have rights to trademarks, service marks or trade names that we use in connection with the operation of our businesses, including, but not limited to, Bumble, Badoo and Fruitz. In addition, our names, logos, website domain names and addresses are our service marks or trademarks. Other trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrighted materials appearing in this Annual Report are the property of their respective owners. We do not intend our use or display of other companies’ trademarks, service marks, trade names, or copyrighted materials to imply a relationship with, endorsement or sponsorship of us by, any other companies.

Solely for convenience, certain trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrights referred to in this Annual Report are listed without the ©, ® or ™ symbols, but such references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights or the rights of the applicable licensors to these trademarks, service marks, trade names and copyrights.

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PART I

Item 1. Business

Who We Are

Bumble app was founded because we noticed two different, yet related issues in our society: antiquated gender norms, and a lack of kindness and accountability on the internet. We observed that women were often treated unequally in society, especially in romantic relationships. At the same time, social networks created possibilities for connections, but they were focused on connections with people you already know and lacked guardrails to encourage better behavior online.

We created Bumble app to change this. The Bumble brand was built with women at the center—where women make the first move. Our platform is designed to be safe and empowering for women, and, in turn, provides a better environment for everyone. We are leveraging innovative technology solutions to create a more inclusive, safe and accountable way to connect online for all users regardless of gender.

Bumble’s mission is to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, through Kind Connections. Our platform enables people to connect and build healthy and equitable relationships on their own terms. We focus on building authenticity and safety in the online space, which is marked at times by isolation and toxicity. We also believe there is a significant opportunity to extend our platform beyond online dating into healthy relationships across all areas of life: love, friendships, careers and beyond. By empowering women across all of their relationships, we believe that we have the potential to become a preeminent global women’s brand.

In 2022, we operated three apps, Bumble app, Badoo app and Fruitz app, where during 2022, on average, over 40 million users came on a monthly basis to discover new people and connect with each other in a safe, secure and empowering environment. Bumble app, Badoo app and Fruitz app monetize via a freemium model, where the use of the service is free and a subset of the users pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases to access premium features. We are a leader in the online dating space, which has become increasingly popular over the last decade and has been cited as the most common way for new couples to meet in the United States.

The Bumble and Badoo apps ranked among the top five grossing iOS lifestyle apps in 109 and 99 countries, respectively, as of December 31, 2022.

In January 2022, we acquired Fruitz, a fast-growing dating app with a Gen Z focus, which is a growing segment of online dating consumers. Fruitz app was the second most downloaded dating app in France, its core market, during the year ended December 31, 2022.

Bumble is more than our apps—we are powering a movement. Our mission-first strategy ensures that values guide our business decisions and our business performance enables us to drive impact. Our strategy is anchored by our powerful brand, product leadership, operational excellence and impact initiatives. Examples of how our mission drives our business include:

We believe that the best way to compete in a world where people have multiple ways to connect is through product innovation. We uniquely design our products to facilitate engagement prioritizing safety and accountability across the user experience. We continuously collect user feedback, which informs our product development roadmap. The more we know about our community’s interests, the better we can innovate products that maximize their chances of making connections most likely to turn into the relationships they are seeking. Our apps share some common infrastructure, which allows insights to be shared between apps.

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Our shared infrastructure is also critical to providing our users with personalized and superior experiences. Our team has a strong track record of product leadership in online dating. We were the first company in the dating app industry to develop technology to proactively blur lewd photos shared within a chat, which Bumble recently open-sourced for the technology community as part of a larger effort to help rid the internet of "cyberflashing," the sharing of unsolicited lewd photos online. In addition, the insights we have gained from our community have encouraged us to extend Bumble app into many more areas of life, such as platonic friendships and business networking, and we have built our platform with the flexibility to pursue these opportunities.

Our Technology Has Transformed Online Dating

Technology is at the core of what differentiates our platform. We have a global team of software engineers and product managers who drive the development of our platform. We release live updates rapidly, often once a week to our mobile app and twice a day to our server backend, allowing us to run dozens of tests simultaneously across the entire audience. The rapid nature of our testing framework allows us to optimize the user experience. Our technology and product teams work hand in hand from ideation to product launch, and this has allowed us to be at the forefront of releasing features geared towards improving the safety of our community.

Our technology platform is fueled by:

Bumble App

Profile, Matching and Chatting

Setting up a profile on Bumble app is easy. First, users input information about themselves, including their name, age, gender identity, sexual orientation / who they are looking for, and a photo. In addition, we offer multiple ways for users to add customization and detail to their profiles. Users can also add Badges to their profiles, which allows a user to prominently display certain values or characteristics, ranging from religion, to preference around having children, to zodiac sign. We also enable enhanced personalization of your profile, through integration with Spotify and Instagram. The profile set up includes features geared towards our users’ safety—for example, by encouraging additional photographs, verifying their profile, and offering filters to search for other verified users to protect themselves from “catfishing” or profiles with false identities. We require all users to review our community guidelines which include items such as respecting all users regardless of their identity and only uploading your own photos.

We use a matching algorithm combined with the preferences provided by users to recommend potential connections. Users can opt to use one of our filters to be more specific in the types of matches they see. A user can swipe right to vote “yes” to a potential match, or left to go to the next profile, or, in most of our markets, leave a compliment on a specific photo or profile prompt on someone’s profile. When both users vote yes, a connection is made. After an initial match is formed, users on Bumble app must initiate a chat within 24 hours or the connection disappears. As our motto implies, women make the first move by initiating a chat in a heterosexual connection. Free users can extend one match per day by adding another 24 hours to the countdown. We offer our users multiple mediums to engage with their matches, including through voice chat, video chatting, voice recordings, or GIFs—animated images.

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These features not only enrich the conversation but also improve safety by allowing added layers of verification and interactions prior to meeting in person. Users can also opt to play our Question Game which asks both users in a match the same question.

Safety

The safety and security of our users is a key priority. In addition to prioritizing verification of users and offering communication like voice and video chat tools to allow interactions before or in lieu of in-person meeting without exchanging sensitive personal information, we have also engineered other safety features such as our proactive safety monitoring. This feature uses machine learning to identify harassment and identity-based hate, which is then flagged to moderators to review and action appropriately according to our Community Guidelines. Our Safety Center is an in-app section with advice around safety and security, standards of behavior, how to report unwanted behavior, and other information about how Bumble app maintains safety. We also prioritize mental health by offering options such as Snooze, which temporarily hides a user’s profile to potential matches allowing users to take a break from the platform, without losing their match history or profile details.

Premium Features

Our subscription offerings, Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium, provide users with additional features to increase their success making a meaningful connection. We offer users flexible subscription plans, and the most common lengths are 7-day, 30-day and 90-day. The most popular features included in the subscription plans are:

There are also additional, in-app purchases that subscribers and non-subscribing users can purchase. Some of these features are included in Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium, whereas most are additional features we offer on top of the subscription platform. Some of these additional in-app purchases include:

Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz

In addition to dating, we also provide products that enable social connection, offering users the opportunity to develop platonic connections through Bumble BFF for friendships and through Bumble Bizz for professional networking and mentorship. Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz have a format similar to Bumble Date, requiring users to set up profiles and matching users through “yes” and “no” votes, similar to the dating platform.

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Badoo App

Profile, Matching and Chatting

Badoo app’s profile customizations include the ability to add photos, work or educational background, and other personal information such as height and religion. We also allow profile videos on Badoo app. In addition, users can use the "Moods" feature to share what's on their minds. This can either be based around their current emotions or what kind of date they want to pursue. Another unique feature of Badoo app is the My Interests feature, which allows users to highlight certain topics by entering words or multiple words that are then displayed on the users’ profiles.

Badoo app has a similar matching algorithm to Bumble app and the same vote “yes” or “no” methodology by swiping right and left, respectively. However, Badoo app also has a “People Nearby” feature which allows users to see all potential connections nearby. Unlike on Bumble app, where messaging is restricted until both users vote yes, Badoo app allows users the option to directly message anyone who is of interest without having to mutually vote yes. Badoo app also has a Bumped Into feature, which connects people who are frequently in nearby vicinity. Badoo app's messaging capabilities include GIFs, gift giving, photos, audio, voice calls, and video calls.

Safety

On Badoo app we continually invest in the safety and security of our users. Similar to Bumble app, Badoo app prioritizes verification of users and offering communication like voice and video chat tools to allow interactions before or in lieu of in-person meeting without exchanging sensitive personal information. We have also engineered other safety features such as Rude Message Detector, which uses machine learning to detect any text that could be perceived as rude, abusive, homophobic or discriminatory and gives the user the control to dismiss the message if they are not comfortable with the language used.

Premium Features

Our premium subscription offerings on Badoo app are Badoo Premium and Badoo Premium Plus. Badoo Premium allows additional features such as:

The Badoo Premium Plus subscription includes weekly or daily allowances of features such as:

These subscription plans also offer flexible packages, similar to on Bumble app. Badoo app also offers Badoo Credits, which can be purchased in bundles and used to acquire in-app features such as one-off popularity boosts.

Fruitz App

Fruitz app requires all users to select a profile fruit to symbolize their dating intention: cherries for those seeking a serious relationship, grapes for those looking to date, watermelons for those who are not seeking anything serious, and peaches for those looking for a casual relationship. This simple feature normalizes the notion of users disclosing their dating intentions from the first touchpoint with any user, encouraging honesty and transparency.

On Fruitz app, the safety and security of our users is paramount. Fruitz leverages shared infrastructure from the Bumble and Badoo apps for photo moderation.

Fruitz app's premium subscription offerings are Fruitz Premium and Fruitz Golden. Premium features include: Filter by Fruit, which enables users to filter other users by their dating intention, represented by their fruit, and Who Liked Me, which allows users to see who has already liked them.

How We Grow Our Community

We are investing in growing our community by building our apps as distinct brands with complementary but unique user value propositions. For Bumble app, we educate audiences on how women making the first move creates healthier relationships across love,

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friendship, and business. Badoo app is about helping people overcome the self-doubt they might feel, to open themselves up to others, embrace the journey of meeting people to figure out what they want. Fruitz app is about encouraging honesty and transparency through the disclosure of dating intentions at the outset.

Each of our apps has a specific brand and marketing approach that is appropriate for its business model, stage of maturity and local market nuances. For example, our Bumble app marketing uses hyperlocal messaging brought to life through large-scale campaigns alongside grassroots community building based on our core audience's location.

Our brands’ marketing strategies are especially effective due to our centralized performance marketing, partnership, and creative functions. These centralized functions enable us to share marketing learnings across our apps and geographies, allowing for the broadest application of successful strategies.

Our Impact

Since the founding of Bumble app, we have established, engaged in, and supported a wide range of social impact efforts to further our mission, primarily focused on women’s empowerment, healthy relationship education, and the reduction in toxicity on our platform and society at large. These include:

Human Capital

Our company culture and people practices are critical to achieving our mission of creating a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, and our values are rooted in growth, kindness, equity, accountability and honesty.

Diversity & Inclusion

The diversity of our management team and workforce is key to our success and reflects our mission and values. We strongly encourage people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and non-binary people, veterans, and individuals with disabilities to apply to work with us. We seek to be fully reflective of the communities we serve around the world. As of the date of this Annual Report, 73% of our Board and more than 50% of our management team are women. As of December 31, 2022, we had over 950 full-time employees, of which approximately 770 are located outside of the United States.

We are focused on building an inclusive culture and sustaining a diverse workforce through a variety of company initiatives. As part of that effort, we have established several employee resource groups (“ERG”s), each with a mission of bringing our employees together, collectively learning, sharing meaningful experiences, addressing challenges, providing access to supportive services and building inclusive communities within Bumble. At the center of this initiative is Diversibees, an intersectional, employee-led organization consisting of more than 300 employees. Single-identity affinity groups come together under the Diversibees umbrella.

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Our ERGs sponsor many initiatives throughout the year, which build community and advocacy through workshops, newsletters, listening circles, leadership development and other training programs, and cultural celebrations.

Other company initiatives include: continuing to expand the role of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Center of Excellence, setting workforce representation goals, providing diversity and inclusion training to all employees, and continuing our investment in the Bumble Tech Academy graduates, which encourages and supports the transition of talent from underrepresented groups and communities to the tech sector.

Talent Acquisition, Development & Retention

We compete to attract and retain highly talented individuals, particularly people with expertise in computer science, software engineering, product development, data science and engineering and machine learning. Our ability to recruit top talent is driven by our mission-first orientation, meaningful and impactful work, commitment to employee development, health and wellbeing and our brands’ reputation.

We invest in development to help employees grow and build their careers. We sponsor training, education and leadership development opportunities for our employees designed to provide them with the knowledge, skills and habits necessary to succeed in their jobs and careers. In 2022, we optimized our performance evaluation processes and piloted a manager development program, which we plan to expand to all managers in 2023.

To build an organization where employees feel engaged, valued and heard, we gather and respond to employees’ feedback in a variety of ways, including through periodic employee engagement surveys, new joiner surveys, one-on-one interactions, and regular "All Hands" meetings that bring the entire company together. Participation in our most recent employee engagement survey was active, with approximately seven in ten employees completing the survey. We maintain open lines of communication to help us understand our employees’ needs so that we can continuously improve as an employer of choice for our current and future employees.

Benefits, Safety & Wellbeing

The success of our business is fundamentally connected to the wellbeing of our people. We continue to invest in benefits that help our employees, support our mission, and align with market practice across five key health pillars: physical, mental, financial, family, and social.

We offer a competitive benefits package, which includes access to private healthcare coverage for employees and their families, paid six-month leave for parents regardless of gender, path to parenthood support, unlimited paid time off, and paid leave for survivors of domestic violence or violent crimes. We also invest in initiatives for financial and retirement planning.

The safety of our employees remains among our top priorities. We regularly engage a mental health liaison to work with our internal safety team, host benefit sessions on topics of safety, and offer mental healthcare resources to employees.

Competition

The online dating industry is fast growing and highly competitive. We compete with a number of companies that provide dating products and services for the same markets in which we operate, including other online dating platforms and social media platforms that offer dating features. However, online dating is not a winner-take-all market, with users on average using two different apps at the same time—and very few competitors operate at our scale or level of brand awareness. In addition, we compete with offline dating services, such as in-person matchmakers, as well as more traditional forms of dating that involve people meeting offline without the use of dating products or services altogether. Because of the extensibility of the Bumble app platform beyond dating, we also compete with social media and networking platforms in that context.

Intellectual Property

We believe that our rights in our intellectual property, including patents, designs, copyrights, trademarks and domain names, as well as contractual provisions and restrictions on access to our proprietary technology, are important to our marketing efforts to develop brand recognition and differentiate our brand from our competitors. We own a number of trademarks that have been registered, or for which registration applications are pending, in the U.S. as well as in certain foreign jurisdictions. These trademarks include, among others, BUMBLE, BADOO and FRUITZ. The current registrations of these trademarks are effective for varying periods of time and may be renewed periodically, provided that we, as the registered owner, or our licensees where applicable, comply with all applicable renewal requirements including, where necessary, the continued use of the trademarks in connection with similar services and goods. We expect to pursue additional trademark registrations to the extent we believe they would be beneficial and cost-effective.

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In addition to trademark protection, we own numerous domain names, including www.bumble.com, and patents and designs for various product features. We also enter into, and rely on, confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements with our employees, consultants, contractors and business partners to protect our inventions, trade secrets, proprietary technology and other confidential information. We further protect the use of our proprietary technology and intellectual property through provisions in both our customer terms of use on our website and in our vendor terms and conditions. For information regarding risks related to our intellectual property, please see “Item 1A—Risk Factors—Risks Related to Information Technology Systems and Intellectual Property.”

Seasonality

We experience seasonality in user growth, user engagement, Paying User growth, and monetization on our platform. Historically, we have seen an increase in all of these metrics in January due in part to seasonal demand in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, and during the Northern Hemisphere summer. Generally, our highest performing months for user growth and user engagement are during the first and third quarters of the fiscal year, and our highest performing months for Total Paying Users are in the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year.

Licensing and Regulation

We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States and around the world that involve matters central to our business. Many of these laws and regulations are still evolving and being tested in courts, and could be interpreted in ways that could harm our business. These laws may relate to privacy, data protection and personal information, online safety, rights of publicity, content, intellectual property, advertising, marketing, distribution, data security, data retention and deletion, electronic contracts and other communications, competition, protection of minors, consumer protection, telecommunications, taxation, economic or other trade prohibitions or sanctions, anti-corruption law compliance, securities law compliance, online payment services, and labor and employment. In particular, we are subject to federal, state, and foreign laws regarding privacy and protection of people’s data and we currently, and from time to time, may not be in technical compliance with all such laws. Foreign data protection, privacy, content, competition, and other laws and regulations can impose different obligations or be more restrictive than those in the United States. U.S. federal and state and foreign laws and regulations, which in some cases can be enforced by private parties in addition to government entities, are constantly evolving and can be subject to significant change. As a result, the application, interpretation, and enforcement of these laws and regulations are often uncertain and difficult to predict, particularly in the rapidly-evolving industry in which we operate, and may be interpreted and applied inconsistently from country to country and inconsistently with our current policies and practices.

Proposed, new and evolving legislation and regulations could also significantly affect our business. For example, the implications of the European Union (“EU”) and United Kingdom’s General Data Protection Regulation (collectively referred to as “GDPR”), which applies to our products and services, are far-reaching and constantly evolving. The GDPR includes operational requirements for companies that are established in the European Economic Area or United Kingdom, respectively, and for companies that receive or process personal data of individuals located in those jurisdictions, and includes significant penalties for non-compliance. In addition to the GDPR, there are a number of legislative proposals in the EU as well as other jurisdictions that could impose new obligations or limitations in areas affecting our business. There are other privacy and data protection laws and regulations that impact the products and services we offer to users in different countries. In the United States, there are a number of state laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, which, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”), modified the legal regime in California, including by expanding consumers’ rights with respect to certain sensitive personal information, and created a new state agency, the first of its kind in the United States, which is vested with authority to implement and enforce the CCPA. There are other U.S. states that have passed comprehensive privacy laws that have either come into force – Virginia – or will come into force later this year – Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah, or that have pending privacy bills in their respective legislatures. At a national level in the United States, Congress may pass a comprehensive federal privacy statute and agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission are increasing their enforcement efforts and considering adopting new privacy rules. New privacy laws or regulations are likely to grant enhanced privacy rights to individuals and impose obligations on us as a business operating in those jurisdictions. In addition, some countries are considering or have passed legislation requiring local storage and processing of data or similar requirements that could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our services. For information regarding risks related to these compliance requirements, please see “Item 1A—Risk Factors—Risks Related to Regulation and Litigation—We must comply with rapidly-evolving privacy and data protection laws across jurisdictions, and the failure to do so could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations, or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business.”

The foregoing description does not include an exhaustive list of the laws and regulations governing or impacting our business. See the discussion contained in the “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report for information regarding how actions by regulatory

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authorities or changes in legislation and regulation in the jurisdictions in which we operate may have a material adverse effect on our business.

Emerging Growth Company Status

In connection with our IPO, we elected to be an Emerging Growth Company (“EGC”), as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. An EGC is defined as a company with total annual gross revenues of less than $1.235 billion during its most recently completed fiscal year. A company will retain its EGC status until the earlier of: (1) the last day of the fiscal year in which it exceeds $1.235 billion in annual gross revenues; (2) the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the date it first sold securities pursuant to an initial public offering registration statement; (3) the date on which the EGC has, within the previous three years, issued $1 billion of nonconvertible debt; or (4) the date it is deemed to be a large accelerated filer (an SEC registered company with a public float of at least $700 million).

Effective December 31, 2022, we are a large accelerated filer and accordingly are no longer an EGC.

Additional Information

Bumble Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on October 5, 2020. Our principal executive offices are located at 1105 West 41st Street, Austin, Texas 78756, and our telephone number is (512) 696-1409.

Our website address is www.bumble.com and our investor relations website is located at https://ir.bumble.com. The information posted on our website is not incorporated into this Annual Report. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, (the “Exchange Act”) are available free of charge on our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

We webcast our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community on our investor relations website. Additionally, we provide notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance, including SEC filings, investor events, press and earnings releases, as part of our investor relations website. The contents of these websites are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this report or in any other report or document we file.

Website and Social Media Disclosure

We use our websites (www.bumble.com and ir.bumble.com) and at times our corporate Twitter account (@bumble) and LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/bumble) to distribute company information. The information we post through these channels may be deemed material. Accordingly, investors should monitor these channels, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. In addition, you may automatically receive e-mail alerts and other information about Bumble when you enroll your e-mail address by visiting the “E-mail Alerts” section of our website at ir.bumble.com. The contents of our website and social media channels are not, however, a part of this Annual Report.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

You should carefully consider the following risks and all of the other information set forth in this Annual Report, including without limitation “Item 7—Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes in “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.” The following risk factors have been organized by category for ease of use; however, many of the risks may have impacts in more than one category.

Risks Related to Our Brand, Products and Operations

If we fail to retain existing users or add new users, or if our users decrease their level of engagement with our products or do not convert to paying users, our revenue, financial results and business may be significantly harmed.

The size of our user base and our users’ level of engagement are critical to our success. Our apps monetize via a freemium model where the use of our service is free and a subset of our users pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases to access premium features. Our financial performance has thus been and will continue to be significantly determined by our success in adding, retaining and engaging users of our products and converting users into paying subscribers or in-app purchasers. We expect that the size of our user base will fluctuate or decline in one or more markets from time to time, including if users find meaningful relationships on our platforms and no longer need to engage with our products. Furthermore, if people do not perceive our products to be useful, reliable, and/or trustworthy, we may not be able to attract or retain users or otherwise maintain or increase the frequency and duration of their engagement. A number of other online dating companies that achieved early popularity have since experienced slower growth or declines in their user bases or levels of engagement. There is no guarantee that we will not experience a similar erosion of our user base or engagement levels. User engagement can be difficult to measure, particularly as we introduce new and different products and services. Any number of factors can negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if:

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From time to time, certain of these factors have negatively affected user retention, growth, and engagement to varying degrees. See “—Access to our products depends on mobile app stores and other third parties such as data center service providers, as well as third-party cloud infrastructure and service providers, payment aggregators, computer systems, internet transit providers and other communications systems and service providers. Increasing adoption and enforcement by third parties such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store of policies that limit, prohibit or eliminate our ability to distribute or update our applications through their stores, or increase the costs to do so, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.” If we are unable to maintain or increase our user base and user engagement, our revenue and financial results may be materially adversely affected. In addition, we may not experience rapid user growth or engagement in countries where, even though mobile device penetration is high, due to the lack of sufficient cellular based data networks, consumers rely heavily on Wi-Fi and may not access our products regularly throughout the day. Any decrease in user retention, growth or engagement could render our products less attractive to users, which is likely to have a material and adverse impact on our revenue, business, financial condition and results of operations. If our user growth rate slows or declines, we will become increasingly dependent on our ability to maintain or increase levels of user engagement and monetization in order to drive revenue growth.

The dating industry is highly competitive, with low switching costs and a consistent stream of new products and entrants, and innovation by our competitors may disrupt our business.

The dating industry is highly competitive, with a consistent stream of new products and entrants. Some of our competitors may enjoy better competitive positions in certain geographical regions, user demographics or other key areas that we currently serve or may serve in the future. These advantages could enable these competitors to offer products that are more appealing to users and potential users than our products, or to respond more quickly and/or cost-effectively than us to new or changing opportunities.

In addition, within the dating industry generally, costs for consumers to switch between products are low, and consumers have a propensity to try new approaches to connecting with people and to use multiple dating products at the same time. As a result, new products, entrants and business models are likely to continue to emerge. It is possible that a new product could gain rapid scale at the expense of existing brands through harnessing a new technology, or a new or existing distribution channel, creating a new or different approach to connecting people or some other means.

Potential competitors include larger companies that could devote greater resources to the promotion or marketing of their products and services, take advantage of acquisition or other opportunities more readily or develop and expand their products and services more quickly than we do. Potential competitors also include established social media companies that may develop products, features, or services that may compete with ours or operators of mobile operating systems and app stores. For example, Facebook has introduced a dating feature on its platform, which it has rolled out in North America, Europe and other markets around the globe. These social

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media and mobile platform competitors could use strong or dominant positions in one or more markets, and ready access to existing large pools of potential users and personal information regarding those users, to gain competitive advantages over us. These may include offering different product features, services or pricing models that users may prefer or offering their products and services to users at no charge, which may enable them to acquire and engage users at the expense of our user growth or engagement.

If we are not able to compete effectively against our current or future competitors and products that may emerge, the size and level of engagement of our user base may decrease, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Distribution and marketing of, and access to, our products depends, in significant part, on a variety of third-party publishers and platforms. If these third parties limit, prohibit or otherwise interfere with or change the terms of the distribution, use or marketing of our products in any material way, it could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We market and distribute our products (including related mobile applications) through a variety of third-party publishers and distribution channels. Our ability to market our brands on any given property or channel is subject to the policies of the relevant third party. There is no guarantee that popular mobile platforms will continue to feature our products, or that mobile device users will continue to use our products rather than competing products. We are dependent on the interoperability of our products with popular mobile operating systems, networks, technologies, products, and standards that we do not control, such as the Android and iOS operating systems. Any changes, bugs, or technical issues in such systems, or changes in our relationships with mobile operating system partners, handset manufacturers, or mobile carriers, or in their terms of service or policies that degrade our products’ functionality, reduce or eliminate our ability to update or distribute our products, give preferential treatment to competitive products, limit our ability to deliver, target, or measure the effectiveness of ads, or charge fees related to the distribution of our products or our delivery of ads could materially adversely affect the usage of our products on mobile devices. For example, the release of iOS 14.5 in April 2021 brought with it the need for app users to opt in before their identifier for advertisers (“IDFA”) can be accessed by an app, requiring advertisers to use Apple’s SKAdNetwork for attribution (Apple’s framework that allows advertisers to attribute app installs to a specific ad campaign while maintaining user privacy when advertising to users on the iOS platform). Apple’s IDFA is a string of numbers and letters assigned to Apple devices which advertisers use to identify app users to deliver personalized and targeted advertising. As some users choose not to opt in to grant IDFA access, our ability to accurately target, track and measure our advertising campaigns at the user level has become limited and may become more limited, and we may thus experience increases in cost per registration and/or decreases in return on advertising spend. Moreover, this opt-in requirement on iOS has had and may have a broader impact and cause increased competition on Android through the migration of other advertisers' advertising campaigns to that platform, which may have contributed to, and may contribute to, further increases in our cost per registration due to increases in cost per impression for Android ad inventory that we purchase. Apple recently announced an update to its SKAdNetwork - SKAN 4.0, which is intended to give advertisers improved visibility into users’ post-install behavior. However, the way in which advertisers adopt to any changes in SKAN 4.0 may impact the advertising ecosystem, increase advertising competition and affect our business in a negative way. Meanwhile, Google announced a multi-year initiative with the goal of strengthening privacy on Android, which may include the abolishment of Advertising IDs (Google's unique user IDs for advertising) and limitations on sharing user data with third parties. While Google has stated that this will be a slower transition than Apple's implementation and update of the SKAdNetwork, and that Google is implementing systems around attribution and targeting to limit the disruption to advertisers, any such changes in the future may cause increases in our cost per registration and/or decreases in return on advertising spend, and may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Further, some of the third-party publishers and distribution channels through which we market and distribute our products have rolled out or may in the future roll out their own dating products, such as Facebook. If these third-party publishers and distribution channels limit our ability to reach their users, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.

In addition, certain publishers and channels have, from time to time, limited or prohibited advertisements for dating products for a variety of reasons, including as a result of poor behavior by other industry participants. There is no assurance that we will not be limited or prohibited from using certain current or prospective marketing channels in the future. If this were to happen in the case of a significant marketing channel and/or for a significant period of time, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

Finally, many users historically registered for (and logged into) the application through their Facebook profiles, their Apple IDs or their Google Account. While we have other methods that allow users to register for (and log into) our products, no assurances can be provided that users will use these other methods. Facebook, Apple and Google have broad discretion to change their terms and conditions in ways that could limit, eliminate or otherwise interfere with our ability to use Facebook, Apple or Google as a registration method or to allow Facebook, Apple or Google to use such data to gain a competitive advantage. If Facebook, Apple or Google did so, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. Additionally, if security on Facebook, Apple or Google is compromised, if our users are locked out from their accounts on Facebook, Apple or Google or if Facebook, Apple or Google experiences an outage, our users may be unable to access our products. As a result, user growth and engagement on our service could be materially adversely affected, even if for a temporary period.

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We also rely on large tech platforms such as Google for targeted advertisement and performance marketing. In the event that we are no longer able to conduct targeted advertisement and performance marketing through such platforms, including because of increased costs of advertising on these platforms, or changes in government regulations in the countries where we advertise through these platforms (for example, under the EU Digital Services Act, online platforms must ensure that users can easily identify advertisements and understand who presents or pays for the advertisement), our user acquisition and revenue stream may be materially adversely affected. Any of these events could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Access to our products depends on mobile app stores and other third parties such as data center service providers, as well as third-party cloud infrastructure and service providers, payment aggregators, computer systems, internet transit providers and other communications systems and service providers. Increasing adoption and enforcement by third parties such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store of policies that limit, prohibit or eliminate our ability to distribute or update our applications through their stores, or increase the costs to do so, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our products depend on mobile app stores and other third parties such as data center service providers, as well as third-party cloud infrastructure and service providers, payment aggregators, computer systems, internet transit providers and other communications systems and service providers. Our mobile applications are almost exclusively accessed through and depend on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. While our mobile applications are generally free to download from these stores, we offer our users the opportunity to purchase subscriptions and certain à la carte features through these applications. We determine the prices at which these subscriptions and features are sold, subject to approval by Apple or Google, as relevant. Purchases of these subscriptions and features via our mobile applications are mainly processed through the in-app payment systems provided by Apple and Google. We pay Apple and Google, as applicable, a meaningful share (up to 30%) of the revenue we receive from transactions processed through in-app payment systems (Google reduced its in-app purchase fees for subscription payments to 15% as of January 1, 2022). If the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store were to experience an outage, or if either decided to exit a market, many of our users may be unable to access our apps, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Furthermore, both Apple and Google have broad discretion to make changes to their operating systems or payment services or change the manner in which their mobile operating systems function and their respective terms and conditions applicable to the distribution of our applications, including the amount of, and requirement to pay, certain fees associated with purchases required to be facilitated by Apple and Google through our applications, and to interpret their respective terms and conditions in ways that may limit, eliminate or otherwise interfere with our products, our ability to distribute our applications through their stores, our ability to update our applications, including to make bug fixes or other feature updates or upgrades, the features we provide, the manner in which we market our in-app products, our ability to access native functionality or other aspects of mobile devices, and our ability to access information about our users that they collect. To the extent either or both of them do so, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. For example, Google has implemented a policy whereby only Google Play’s in-app billing system can be used for transactions in its store. We have increased compliance with this policy across our markets, which has had and may continue to have a negative impact on our revenue, earnings margins and numbers of Paying Users, especially in markets that tend to have lower value subscriptions and higher concentrations of Android users. In addition, prompted by Google’s billing policy, we decided to temporarily stop the use of non-native payment options for Badoo app users on Android during the third quarter of 2021, which caused disruptions for users and led to a decline in Paying Users for Badoo app. In March 2022, Google announced a pilot program called “user choice billing,” whereby Google will allow a small number of participating developers to offer an additional billing option besides Google Play’s billing system. In parallel, Google also announced a new program allowing developers of non-gaming apps selling digital content or services the option of offering their users in the European Economic Area an alternative to Google Play’s billing system. We are currently considering our approach to these new programs, but participation in these programs may subject us to higher fees and cause a disruption to the user journey, which could cause a decrease in paying user conversion rates. In the event that we do not proceed with Google’s user choice billing then, as of today, we would only be able to offer Google Play’s in-app billing system. Failing to comply with this policy may result in removal from the Google Play store. If Google removes our apps from the Google Play store, it would significantly reduce our ability to distribute our products to users, which would decrease the size of the user base we could convert into Paying Users, and would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In another recent example, in December 2021 the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets ordered Apple to adjust the conditions in its Netherlands App Store that apply to dating app developers in order to provide dating app developers the ability to offer different payment options. To comply with these orders, Apple announced that it will allow dating app developers in the Netherlands App Store to include an in-app link directing customers to the developer’s website to complete a purchase, or use a third-party payment system within the app (however, Apple also indicated that dating app developers that offer alternative methods of payment will now pay Apple a 27% commission on transactions that use a third-party payment system within the app). Similarly, South Korea passed a bill banning major app store operators from requiring developers to only use their payment systems to process the sale of digital products and services. In response, Apple indicated that app developers that offer alternative methods of payment will now pay Apple a 26% commission on transactions that use a third-party payment system within the app. If other markets take similar actions, we will increasingly become subject to different, country-specific policies and commissions of major app store operators, we will need to devote more resources and time in creating and managing separate app bundles for each

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country in which we want to offer alternative payment options, which may become burdensome, and/or we could become subject to higher commissions, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are not able to maintain the value and reputation of our brands, our ability to expand our base of users may be impaired, and our business and financial results may be harmed.

We believe that our brands have significantly contributed to the success of our business. We also believe that maintaining, protecting and enhancing our brands is critical to expanding our base of users and, if we fail to do so, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected. We believe that the importance of brand recognition will continue to increase, given the growing number of online dating and social connection sites and applications, or “apps,” and the low barriers to entry for companies offering online dating, social connection and other types of personal services. Many of our new users are referred by existing users. Maintaining our brands will depend largely on our ability to continue to provide useful, reliable, trustworthy and innovative products, which we may not do successfully.

Further, we may experience media, legislative, or regulatory scrutiny of our actions or decisions regarding user privacy, encryption, content, advertising and other issues, which may materially adversely affect our reputation and brands. In addition, we may fail to respond expeditiously or appropriately to objectionable practices by users, or to otherwise address user concerns, which could erode confidence in our brands. Maintaining and enhancing our brands will require us to make substantial investments and these investments may not be successful.

Changes to our existing brands and products, or the introduction of new brands or products, could fail to attract or retain users or generate revenue and profits.

Our ability to retain, increase, and engage our user base and to increase our revenue depends heavily on our ability to continue to evolve our existing brands and products and to create successful new brands and products, both independently and in conjunction with developers or other third parties. We may introduce significant changes to our existing brands and products, or acquire or introduce new and unproven brands, products and product extensions, including using technologies with which we have little or no prior development or operating experience. We have also invested, and expect to continue to invest, significant resources in growing our products to support increasing usage as well as new lines of business, new products, new product extensions and other initiatives to generate revenue. The launch of our Bumble BFF product extension in 2016 and our Bumble Bizz product extension in 2017, which have not yet generated significant revenue for us, are examples. There is no guarantee that investing in new lines of business, new products, new product extensions and other initiatives will succeed. If our new or enhanced brands, products or product extensions fail to engage users, marketers, or developers, or if our business plans are unsuccessful, we may fail to attract or retain users or to generate sufficient revenue, operating margin, or other value to justify our investments, and our business may be materially adversely affected.

We may also introduce new products, features or terms of service or policies, and seek to find new, effective ways to show our community new and existing products and alert them to events and meaningful opportunities to connect, that users do not like, which may negatively affect our brands. New products may provide temporary increases in engagement that may ultimately fail to attract and retain users such that they may not produce the long-term benefits that we expect.

We have grown rapidly in recent years and have limited operating experience at our current scale of operations. If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, our brand, company culture and financial performance may suffer.

We have experienced rapid growth and demand for our services since inception. We have expanded our operations rapidly and have limited operating experience at our current size. As we have grown, we have increased our employee headcount and we expect headcount growth to continue for the foreseeable future. Further, as we grow, our business becomes increasingly complex. To effectively manage and capitalize on our growth, we must continue to expand our sales and marketing, focus on innovative product and content development, upgrade our management information systems and other processes, and obtain more space for our expanding staff. Our continued growth could strain our existing resources, and we could experience ongoing operating difficulties in managing our business across numerous jurisdictions, including difficulties in hiring, training, and managing a diffuse and growing employee base. Failure to scale and preserve our company culture with growth could harm our future success, including our ability to retain and recruit personnel and to effectively focus on and pursue our corporate objectives. If our management team does not effectively scale with our growth, we may experience erosion to our brand, the quality of our products and services may suffer, and our company culture may be harmed. Moreover, we have been, and may in the future be, subject to legacy claims or liabilities arising from systems, product features or controls in earlier periods of our rapid development.

Because we have a limited history operating our business at its current scale, it is difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, including our ability to plan for and model future growth. Our limited operating experience at this scale, combined with the rapidly-evolving nature of the market in which we operate, substantial uncertainty concerning how these markets may develop, and

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other economic factors beyond our control, reduces our ability to accurately forecast quarterly or annual revenue. Failure to manage our future growth effectively could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and operating results.

We operate in various international markets, including certain markets in which we have limited experience. As a result, we face additional risks in connection with certain of our international operations.

Our apps are available in many different languages, all over the world. Operating internationally, particularly in countries in which we have limited experience, exposes us to a number of additional risks, including:

The occurrence or impact of any or all of the events described above could materially adversely affect our international operations, which could in turn materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Our operations may be adversely affected by ongoing developments in Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries, including due to the impact of our decision to discontinue our operations in Russia and remove our apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus.

Historically, we have had business operations in Russia. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, we leased office space in Moscow and had approximately 125 employees based out of the Moscow office, consisting primarily of engineers responsible for services including anti-spam, integrity, incident management and product development and services related to supportive IT infrastructure.

On March 8, 2022, we announced the discontinuation of our operations in Russia and the removal of all of our apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus. We closed our Moscow office and shifted our resources based in Moscow, where feasible, to other geographic locations. The removal of our apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus has reduced our revenue (predominantly Badoo app revenue) and Paying Users from these countries. Furthermore, in connection with the office closure, we have experienced, and may continue to experience, increased costs as we shift our resources to other geographies.

Additionally, Russian measures imposed against Western companies and/or escalating sanctions and trade control measures implemented against Russia (and Belarus) in response to the conflict may also impact us. For example, the significant expansion of the sanctions lists in the EU, UK, United States, Canada (and other jurisdictions) and other measures to limit Russia and Belarus’ access to global financial markets and systems may have an impact on our ability to make and receive payments to/from Russian and Belarussian individuals or entities. Such measures may also continue to have an impact on our ability to continue operating in Ukraine by restricting our ability to offer services in the region.

These measures, and others which may be implemented by the authorities in certain of these jurisdictions, are complex and still evolving. Any alleged or actual failure to comply with these measures as we finalize the extrication of our business operations from Russia may subject us to government scrutiny, civil and/or criminal proceedings, sanctions and other liabilities, which may have a material adverse effect on our international operations, financial condition and results of operations.

There may also be other practical consequences for our operations in the broader European region, including in the neighboring countries:

Due to the discontinuation of our operations in Russia, we have experienced reduced revenues and Paying Users from Russia and Belarus, as well as increased costs. While it is difficult to estimate with certainty the continued effect of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, current or further economic sanctions, any involvement of other countries or expansion in hostilities, and any retaliatory measures by Russia in response, we may continue to experience these and other adverse effects on our operations and results.

Our growth and profitability rely, in part, on our ability to attract and retain users through cost-effective marketing efforts, including through our social media presence and use of sponsorships, brand ambassadors, spokespersons and social media influencers. Any failure in these efforts could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Attracting and retaining users for our products involve considerable expenditures for online and offline marketing. Historically, we have had to increase our marketing expenditures over time in order to attract and retain users and sustain our growth. Evolving consumer behavior can affect the availability of profitable marketing opportunities. For example, as consumers communicate more via messaging apps and other virtual means, to continue to reach potential users and grow our businesses, we must identify and devote more of our overall marketing expenditures to newer advertising channels, such as mobile and online video platforms as well as targeted campaigns in which we communicate directly with potential, former and current users via new virtual means. Generally, the opportunities in and sophistication of newer advertising channels are relatively undeveloped and unproven, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to appropriately manage and fine-tune our marketing efforts in response to these and other trends in the advertising industry. Any failure to do so could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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In addition, from time to time, we use the success stories of our users, and utilize sponsorships, Bumble app brand ambassadors, spokespersons and social media influencers, including in some cases celebrities, in our advertising and marketing programs to communicate on a personal level with consumers. If these individuals act in a way that is contrary to our women-first mission or that harms their personal reputation or image, or if they stop using our services and products, it could have an adverse impact on the advertising and marketing campaigns in which they are featured and on our brand. We and our brand ambassadors, spokespersons and social media influencers also use social media channels as a means of communicating with consumers. Unauthorized or inappropriate use of these channels could result in harmful publicity or negative consumer experiences, which could have an adverse impact on the effectiveness of our marketing in these channels. In addition, substantial negative commentary by others on social media platforms could have an adverse impact on our reputation and ability to attract and retain users. If our advertising and marketing campaigns do not generate a sufficient number of users, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be materially affected.

We are subject to certain risks as a mission-based company.

We believe that a critical contributor to our success has been our commitment to empower women in their relationships, in an effort to make the world a better place for everyone. The mission of Bumble app is a significant part of our business strategy and who we are as a company. We believe that Bumble app users value our commitment to our mission. However, because we hold ourselves to such high standards, and because we believe our users have come to have high expectations of us, we may be more severely affected by negative reports or publicity if we fail, or are perceived to have failed, to live up to Bumble app’s mission. For example, providing a safe online community for users to build new relationships and to empower women is central to Bumble app’s mission. As a result, our brands and reputation may be negatively affected by the actions of users that are deemed to be hostile or inappropriate to other users or disempowering to women or by the actions of users acting under false or inauthentic identities. Similarly, any negative publicity about activity in the business that is perceived to be disempowering to women would negatively affect our brands and reputation. The damage to our reputation may be greater than other companies that do not have similar values as us, and it may take us longer to recover from such an incident and gain back the trust of our users.

In addition, we may make decisions regarding our business and products in accordance with Bumble app’s mission and values that may reduce our short- or medium-term operating results if we believe those decisions are consistent with the mission and will improve the aggregate user experience. Although we expect that our commitment to Bumble app’s mission will, accordingly, improve our financial performance over the long term, these decisions may not be consistent with the expectations of investors and any longer-term benefits may not materialize within the time frame we expect or at all, which could harm our business, revenue and financial results.

Finally, we have in the past and may in the future be subjected to litigation by those that disagree with aspects of Bumble app’s mission or features of our platform that we have developed in support of our mission.

Our costs are continuing to grow, and some of our investments have the effect of reducing our operating margin and profitability. If our investments are not successful, our business and financial performance could be harmed.

Operating our business is costly. We anticipate that our expenses will continue to increase in the future as we broaden our user base, develop and implement new products, market new and existing products and promote our brands, continue to expand and maintain our technical infrastructure, and continue to hire additional employees and contractors to support our expanding operations, including our efforts to focus on privacy, safety, and security. In addition, from time to time we may be subject to settlements, judgments, fines, or other monetary penalties in connection with legal and regulatory developments that may be material to our business. We may invest in new platforms and technologies. Some of these investments may generate only limited revenue and reduce our operating margin and profitability. If our investments are not successful, our ability to grow revenue will be harmed, which could materially adversely affect our business and financial performance.

Our future success depends on the continuing efforts of our key employees and our ability to attract and retain highly skilled personnel and senior management.

We currently depend on the continued services and performance of our key personnel, including Whitney Wolfe Herd. If one or more of our executive officers or key employees were unable or unwilling to continue their employment with us, we might not be able to replace them easily, in a timely manner, or at all. The risk that competitors or other companies may poach our talent increases as we continue to build our brands and become more well-known. Our key personnel have been, and may continue to be, subject to poaching efforts by our competitors and other internet and high-growth companies, including well-capitalized players in the social media and consumer internet space. The loss of key personnel, including members of management as well as key engineering, product development, and marketing personnel, could disrupt our operations and have a material adverse effect on our business. The success of our brand also depends on the commitment of our key personnel to our mission. To the extent that any of our key personnel act in a way that does not align with our mission, our reputation could be materially adversely affected. See “—Our employees could engage in misconduct that materially adversely affects us.”

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Our future success will depend upon our continued ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate and retain highly skilled individuals across the globe, with the continued contributions of our senior management being especially critical to our success. Despite recent disruption within the tech industry of hiring trends and, in some cases, workforce layoffs, competition for well-qualified, highly skilled employees remains very strong. We have experienced in the past, and continue to experience, difficulty hiring qualified personnel in a timely manner, and we may not be able to fill positions in desired geographic areas or at all, or may experience increased labor costs in order to do so. Our continued ability to compete effectively depends, in part, upon our ability to attract and retain new employees. While we have established programs to attract new employees and provide incentives to retain existing employees, particularly our senior management, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to attract new employees or retain the services of our senior management or any other key employees in the future. As we continue to mature, the incentives to attract, retain, and motivate employees provided by our equity awards or by future arrangements may not be as effective as in the past, and if we issue significant equity to attract additional employees or to retain our existing employees, we would incur substantial additional share-based compensation expense and tax expense and the ownership of our existing stockholders would be further diluted. Further, our ability to attract, retain, and motivate employees may also be adversely affected by stock price volatility. In particular, declines in our stock price, or lower stock price performance relative to competitors have been reducing the retention value of our share-based awards, which can impact the competitiveness of our compensation.

Additionally, we believe that our culture and core values have been, and will continue to be, a key contributor to our success and our ability to foster the innovation, creativity and teamwork we believe we need to support our operations. If we fail to effectively manage our hiring needs and successfully integrate our new hires, or if we fail to effectively manage remote work arrangements, our efficiency and ability to meet our forecasts and our ability to maintain our culture, employee morale, productivity and retention could suffer, and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

Finally, effective succession planning is also important to our future success. If we fail to ensure the effective transfer of senior management knowledge and smooth transitions involving senior management across our various businesses, our ability to execute short and long term strategic, financial and operating goals, as well as our business, financial condition and results of operations generally, could be materially adversely affected.

Our culture emphasizes innovation, and if we cannot maintain this culture as we grow, our business and operating results could be adversely impacted.

We believe that our entrepreneurial and innovative corporate culture has been a key contributor to our success. We encourage and empower our employees to develop and launch new and innovative products and services, which we believe is essential to attracting high quality talent, partners, and developers, as well as serving the best, long-term interests of our company. If we cannot maintain this culture as we grow, we could lose the innovation, creativity and teamwork that has been integral to our business, in which case our products and services may suffer and our business, operating results, and financial condition could be adversely impacted.

We may enter into “white label” or licensing agreements in collaboration with third parties that may take actions outside of our control that harm our brand or such arrangements may be otherwise unsuccessful.

We have entered into “white label” agreements and may, from time to time, enter into licensing agreements pursuant to which we license our brand or our product technology to third parties. For example, pursuant to our white label agreements, we agree to set up, operate and maintain a version of our product technology for a third party where the product is branded with such third-party partner’s trademarks and other content. If any of our white label partners provide unsatisfactory service to their users, fail to comply with applicable laws or regulations or engage in actions contrary to our mission and it is ascertained that we provide the product technology for such partners, our brands and reputation may be harmed as a result of our affiliation with such white label partner. Further, we may have to record impairment losses or completely write-off any such arrangements resulting in non-cash expenses in the relevant period. In addition, from time to time we license our brand in collaborations with third parties where they, and not we, have primary control over day-to-day operations of the project and, as a result, we may have less control over its ultimate success or its impact on our brand. For example, in December 2021, Bumble collaborated with Juice Marketing to launch Bumble Shop, an e-commerce platform selling Bumble-branded apparel and accessories. Bumble licenses its intellectual property to Juice Marketing, but Juice Marketing is responsible for managing the manufacture of the merchandise, quality control, fulfillment of orders, and related customer service matters. Any harm to our reputation as a result of these partnerships could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and cash flows.

Inappropriate actions by certain of our users could be attributed to us and damage our brands’ reputations, which in turn could materially adversely affect our business.

Users of our products have been, and may in the future be, physically, financially, emotionally or otherwise harmed by other individuals that such users have met or may meet through the use of one of our products. When one or more of our users suffers or alleges to have suffered any such harm either on our platform or in person after meeting on our products, we have in the past, and

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could in the future, experience negative publicity or legal action that could damage our brands and our brands’ reputation. Similar events affecting users of our competitors’ products have in the past, and could in the future, result in negative publicity for the dating industry generally, which could in turn negatively affect our business, particularly if such objectionable events are widely reported.

In addition, the reputations of our brands may be materially adversely affected by the actions of our users that are deemed to be hostile, offensive, defamatory, inappropriate or unlawful. Furthermore, users have in the past and may in the future use our products for illegal or harmful purposes rather than for their intended purposes, such as romance scams, promotion of false or inaccurate information, financial fraud, drug trafficking, sex-trafficking, and recruitment to terrorist groups. While we have systems and processes in place that aim to monitor and review the appropriateness of the content accessible through our products, which include, in particular, reporting tools through which users can inform us of such behavior on the platform, and have adopted policies regarding illegal, offensive or inappropriate use of our products, our users have in the past, and could in the future, nonetheless engage in activities that violate our policies. Additionally, while our policies attempt to address illegal, offensive or inappropriate use of our products, we cannot control how our users engage if and when they meet in person after meeting on our products. These safeguards may not be sufficient to avoid harm to our reputation and brands, especially if such hostile, offensive or inappropriate use is well-publicized. Furthermore, to the extent that our users, particularly women, do not feel safe using our products, our reputation and Bumble app's “women-first” brand would be negatively affected, which may in turn materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Spam and fake accounts could diminish the experience on our platform, which could damage our reputation and deter people from using our products and services.

Our terms and conditions of use prohibit “spam” content, which refers to a range of abusive activities that is generally defined as unsolicited, repeated actions that negatively impact other people with the general goal of drawing attention to a given account, site, product or idea. In addition, our terms and conditions of use prohibit the creation of fake accounts. Although we continue to invest resources to reduce spam and fake accounts on our platform, we expect that spammers will continue to seek ways to act inappropriately on our platform. Moreover, we expect that increases in the number of accounts on our platform will result in increased efforts by spammers to misuse our platform. We continuously combat spam and fake accounts, including by suspending or terminating accounts we believe to be spammers and launching algorithmic changes focused on curbing abusive activities. However, our actions to combat spam and fake accounts require significant resources and time. If spam and fake accounts increase on our platform, this could hurt our reputation, result in legal liability or continuing operational cost to us and deter people from using our products and services.

Unfavorable media coverage could materially adversely affect our business, brand image or reputation.

We receive a high degree of media coverage globally. Unfavorable publicity and/or false media reports regarding us, our privacy practices, data security compromises or breaches, product changes, product quality, litigation or regulatory activity, including any intellectual property proceeding, or regarding the actions of our partners, our users, our employees or other companies in our industry, could materially adversely affect our brand image or reputation. For example, a third-party report identifying certain vulnerabilities related to Bumble app was published in the fall of 2020. Although we believe we have remediated all such vulnerabilities, the report may have resulted in unfavorable publicity for us. If we fail to protect our brand image or reputation, we may experience material adverse effects to the size, demographics, engagement, and loyalty of our user base, resulting in decreased revenue, fewer app installs (or increased app uninstalls), or slower user growth rates. In addition, if securities analysts or investors perceive any media coverage of us to be negative, the price of our Class A common stock may be materially adversely affected. Any of the foregoing could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “—Our employees could engage in misconduct that materially adversely affects us,” “—If we are unable to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce intellectual property rights and successfully defend against claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of third-party intellectual property, it could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations,” and “—Security breaches, improper access to or disclosure of our data or user data, other hacking and phishing attacks on our systems, or other cyber incidents could compromise the confidentiality and/or availability of sensitive information related to our business and/or personal data processed by us or on our behalf and expose us to liability, which could harm our reputation and materially adversely affect our business.”

Our employees could engage in misconduct that materially adversely affects us.

Our employees could engage in misconduct that materially adversely affects us. It is not always possible to prevent or detect misconduct by our employees, either personal or in the course of their duties on behalf of the Company, and the precautions we take to prevent and detect this activity (such as training) may not be effective in all cases. Additionally, our remote work environment may require us to develop and implement additional precautions to detect and prevent employee misconduct. Such additional precautions, which may include the implementation of security and other restrictions, may make our systems more difficult and costly to operate and may not be effective in preventing employee misconduct in a remote work environment. If any of our employees were to engage in or be accused of misconduct, or if we were to fail to properly address misconduct, particularly behavior or actions that are

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inconsistent with our mission-driven culture, we could be exposed to regulatory scrutiny or legal liability, our business and reputation could be materially adversely affected, and we could fail to retain key employees. See “—Unfavorable media coverage could materially adversely affect our business, brand image or reputation.”

Our user metrics and other estimates are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in those metrics may seriously harm and negatively affect our reputation and our business.

We regularly review metrics, including our Bumble App Paying Users, Badoo App and Other Paying Users, Total Paying Users, Bumble App ARPPU, Badoo App and Other Average Revenue per Paying User and Total Average Revenue per Paying User metrics, to evaluate growth trends, measure our performance, and make strategic decisions. These metrics are calculated using internal company data gathered on an analytics platform that we developed and operate and have not been validated by an independent third party. While these metrics are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring how our products are used across large populations globally. Our user metrics are also affected by technology on certain mobile devices that automatically runs in the background of our application when another phone function is used, and this activity can cause our system to miscount the user metrics associated with such account. The methodologies used to measure these metrics require significant judgment and are also susceptible to algorithm or other technical errors. In addition, we are continually seeking to improve our estimates of our user base, and such estimates may change due to improvements or changes in our methodology, which could result in adjustments to our historical metrics. Our ability to recalculate our historical metrics may be impacted by data limitations or other factors.

Errors or inaccuracies in our metrics or data could also result in incorrect business decisions and inefficiencies. For instance, if a significant understatement or overstatement of active users were to occur, we may expend resources to implement unnecessary business measures or fail to take required actions to attract a sufficient number of users to satisfy our growth strategies. We continually seek to address technical issues in our ability to record such data and improve our accuracy, but given the complexity of the systems involved and the rapidly changing nature of mobile devices and systems, we expect these issues to continue, particularly if we continue to expand in parts of the world where mobile data systems and connections are less stable. If partners or investors do not perceive our user, geographic, or other demographic metrics to be accurate representations of our user base, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our user, geographic, or other demographic metrics, our business, results of operations and reputation may be materially adversely impacted.

Risks Related to Information Technology Systems and Intellectual Property

Security breaches, improper access to or disclosure of our data or user data, other hacking and phishing attacks on our systems, or other cyber incidents could compromise the confidentiality and/or availability of sensitive information related to our business and/or personal data processed by us or on our behalf and expose us to liability, which could harm our reputation and materially adversely affect our business.

Our products and services and the operation of our business involve the collection, storage, processing, and transmission of data, including personal data. The information systems that store and process such data are susceptible to increasing threats of continually evolving cybersecurity risks. In particular, our industry is prone to cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to confidential or sensitive data, including user personal data, or to disrupt our ability to provide services. We face an ever-increasing number of threats to our information systems from a broad range of threat actors, including foreign governments, criminals, competitors, computer hackers, cyber terrorists and politically motivated groups or individuals, and we have previously experienced various attempts to access our information systems. These threats include physical or electronic break-ins, security breaches from inadvertent or intentional actions by our employees, contractors, consultants, and/or other third parties with otherwise legitimate access to our systems, website or facilities, or from cyber-attacks by malicious third parties which could breach our security controls and disrupt our systems. The motivations of such actors may vary, but breaches that compromise our information technology systems can cause interruptions, delays or operational malfunctions, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

In addition, the risks related to a security breach or disruption, including through a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, computer malware, ransomware, viruses, social engineering (predominantly spear phishing attacks), scraping and general hacking, have become more prevalent in our industry and have generally increased as the number, intensity, and sophistication of attempted attacks and intrusions from around the world have increased. Such security breaches or disruptions have occurred on our systems in the past and will occur on our systems in the future. We also regularly encounter attempts to create false or undesirable user accounts and advertisements or to take other actions on our platform for objectionable ends. As a result of our prominence, the size of our user base, the types and volume of personal data on our systems, and the evolving nature of our products and services (including our efforts involving new and emerging technologies), we may be a particularly attractive target for such attacks, including from highly sophisticated, state-sponsored, or otherwise well-funded actors.

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Our efforts to address undesirable activity on our platform also increase the risk of retaliatory attacks. Such breaches and attacks on us or our third-party service providers may cause interruptions to the services we provide, degrade the user experience, cause users or marketers to lose confidence and trust in our products and decrease the use of our products or stop using our products in their entirety, impair our internal systems, or result in financial harm to us. Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches and unauthorized access to or disclosure of our data or user data, including personal information, content, or payment information from users, or information from marketers, could result in the loss, modification, disclosure, destruction, or other misuse of such data, which could subject us to legal liability, harm our business and reputation and diminish our competitive position. We may incur significant costs in protecting against or remediating such incidents and as cybersecurity incidents continue to evolve, we may be required to expend significant additional resources to continue to modify or enhance our protective measures or to investigate and remediate any information security vulnerabilities. Our efforts to protect our confidential and sensitive data, the data of our users or other personal information we receive, and to minimize undesirable activities on our platform, may also be unsuccessful due to software bugs or other technical malfunctions; employee, contractor, or vendor error or malfeasance, including defects or vulnerabilities in our service providers’ information technology systems or offerings; government surveillance; breaches of physical security of our facilities or technical infrastructure; or other threats that may surface or evolve.

Moreover, third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees or users to disclose information in order to gain access to our data or our users’ data. Cyber-attacks continue to evolve in sophistication and volume, and may be difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we have developed technology and processes that are designed to protect our data and user data, to prevent data loss, to disable undesirable accounts and activities on our platform, and to prevent or detect security breaches, we cannot assure you that such measures will be successful, that we will be able to anticipate or detect all cyber-attacks or other breaches, that we will be able to react to cyber-attacks or other breaches in a timely manner, or that our remediation efforts will be successful. For example, while our technology has supported remote work, such working environments may be less secure and more susceptible to attack, including phishing and social engineering attempts. We may also incur significant legal and financial exposure, including legal claims, higher transaction fees and regulatory fines and penalties as a result of any compromise or breach of our systems or data security, or the systems and data security of our third-party providers. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Furthermore, some of our partners may receive or store information provided by us or by our users through mobile or web applications integrated with our applications and we may use third-party service providers to store, transmit and otherwise process certain confidential, sensitive or personal information on our behalf. If these third parties fail to adopt or adhere to adequate data security practices, to comply with applicable legislation, to transfer data with the required adequate measures for the transfer, or in the event of a breach of their networks, our data or our users’ data may be improperly accessed, used, or disclosed, which could subject us to legal liability. We cannot control such third parties and cannot guarantee that a security breach will not occur on their systems. Although we may have contractual protections with our third-party service providers, contractors and consultants, any actual or perceived security breach could harm our reputation and brand, expose us to potential liability or require us to expend significant resources on data security and in responding to any such actual or perceived breach. Any contractual protections we may have from our third-party service providers, contractors or consultants may not be sufficient to adequately protect us from any such liabilities and losses, and we may be unable to enforce any such contractual protections.

While our insurance policies include liability coverage for certain of these matters, if we experience a significant security incident, we could be subject to liability or other damages that exceed our insurance coverage and we cannot be certain that such insurance policies will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of larger deductibles or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

If the security of personal and confidential or sensitive user information that we maintain and store is breached, or otherwise accessed by unauthorized persons, it may be costly to remediate such a breach and our reputation could be harmed.

We receive, process, store, and transmit a significant amount of personal user and other confidential or sensitive information, including user-to-user communications, payment card information and other personal information of our users and employees, and enable our users to share their personal information with each other. In some cases, we engage third-party service providers to store or process this information. We continuously develop and maintain systems to protect the security, integrity and confidentiality of this information, but we have experienced past incidents and cannot guarantee that inadvertent or unauthorized use or disclosure of such information will not occur in the future or that third parties will not gain unauthorized access to such information despite our efforts. When such incidents occur, we may not be able to remedy them, we may be required by law to notify regulators and individuals whose personal information was used or disclosed without authorization, we may be subject to claims against us, including government enforcement actions or investigations, fines and litigation, and we may have to expend significant capital and other resources to mitigate the impact of such events, including developing and implementing protections to prevent future events of this nature from occurring. When breaches of our or our third-party service providers’ and partners’ information technology systems occur

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or unauthorized access to any of the confidential, sensitive or other personal information we collect or process occurs, the perception of the effectiveness of our security measures, the security measures of our partners and our reputation may be harmed, we may lose current and potential users and the recognition of our various brands and such brands’ competitive positions may be diminished, any or all of which might materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “—We must comply with rapidly-evolving privacy and data protection laws across jurisdictions, and the failure to do so could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations, or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business.”

We are subject to a number of risks related to payment card transactions, including data security breaches and fraud that we or third parties experience or additional regulation, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition to purchases through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, we accept a number of direct payment options from our users, which are facilitated by online payment service providers, including credit and debit cards, mobile and internet provider billing, online wallet-based payments, bank transfers, and ticket- and voucher-based payments. The ability to access payment information on a real-time basis without having to proactively reach out to the consumer each time we process an auto-renewal payment or a payment for the purchase of a premium feature on any of our dating products is critical to our success and a seamless experience for our users.

When we or a third party experiences a data security breach involving payment card information, affected cardholders will often cancel their payment cards. In the case of a breach experienced by a third party, the more sizable the third party’s customer base and the greater the number of payment card accounts impacted, the more likely it is that our users would be impacted by such a breach. To the extent our users are ever affected by such a breach experienced by us or a third party, affected users would need to be contacted to obtain new payment card information and process any pending transactions. It is likely that we would not be able to reach all affected users, and even if we could, some users’ new payment card information may not be obtained and some pending transactions may not be processed, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We work with our payment service providers to utilize tokenization tools to replace sensitive cardholder information with a stand-in token to help secure individual cardholder bank account details in payment card transactions and to reduce the number of systems that have access to our customers’ payment card information. While these tokenization tools can help limit the data security risks associated with payment card transactions, it does not eliminate those risks altogether.

Even if our users are not directly impacted by a given data security breach, they may lose confidence in the ability of service providers to protect their personal information generally, which could cause them to stop using their payment cards online and choose alternative payment methods that are not as convenient for us or restrict our ability to process payments without significant cost or user effort.

Additionally, if we fail to adequately prevent fraudulent payment card transactions, we may face litigation, fines, governmental enforcement action, civil liability, diminished public perception of our security measures, significantly higher payment card-related costs and substantial remediation costs, or refusal by payment card processors to continue to process payments on our behalf, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Finally, the passage or adoption of any legislation or regulation affecting the ability of service providers to periodically charge consumers for, among other things, recurring subscription payments may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, under the Payment Services Regulation 2017, banks and other payment services providers must develop and implement strong customer authentication to check that the person requesting access to an account or trying to make a payment is permitted to do so. This has impacted and could materially adversely affect our payment authorization rate, user journey and paying user conversion rates. Legislation or regulation regarding the foregoing, or changes to existing legislation or regulation governing subscription payments, have been enacted or are being considered in many U.S. states. While we monitor and attempt to comply with these legal developments, we have been in the past, and may be in the future, subject to claims under such legislation or regulation.

Our success depends, in part, on the integrity of third-party systems and infrastructure and on continued and unimpeded access to our products and services on the internet.

We rely on third parties, primarily data center service providers (such as colocation providers), as well as third-party cloud infrastructure and service providers, payment aggregators, computer systems, internet transit providers and other communications systems and service providers, in connection with the provision of our products generally, as well as to facilitate and process certain transactions with our users. We have no control over any of these third parties, and while we actively reduce risk by minimizing reliance on any single third party or their operations, we cannot guarantee that such third-party providers will not experience system interruptions, outages or delays, or deterioration in their performance.

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Problems or insolvency experienced by third-party data center service providers (such as colocation providers), cloud infrastructure and service providers, and payment aggregators, upon whom we rely, the telecommunications network providers with whom we or they contract or with the systems through which telecommunications providers allocate capacity among their customers could also materially adversely affect us. Any changes in service levels at our data centers, cloud infrastructure and service providers, or payment aggregators, or any interruptions, outages or delays in our systems or those of our third-party providers, or deterioration in the performance of these systems, could impair our ability to provide our products or process transactions with our users, which could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Additionally, if we need to migrate our business to different third-party data center service providers, cloud infrastructure and service providers, or payment aggregators, as a result of any such problems or insolvency, it could delay our ability to process transactions with our users. See “—Security breaches, improper access to or disclosure of our data or user data, other hacking and phishing attacks on our systems, or other cyber incidents could compromise the confidentiality and/or availability of sensitive information related to our business and/or personal data processed by us or on our behalf and expose us to liability, which could harm our reputation and materially adversely affect our business.”

Global climate change could result in certain types of natural disasters occurring more frequently or with more intense effects. Any such events may result in users being subject to service disruptions or outages and we may not be able to recover our technical infrastructure and user data in a timely manner to restart or provide our services, which may adversely affect our financial results. We also have been, and may in the future be, subject to increased energy or other costs to maintain the availability or performance of our products in connection with any such events.

In addition, we depend on the ability of our users to access the internet. Currently, this access is provided by companies that have significant market power in the broadband and internet access marketplace, including incumbent telephone companies, cable companies, mobile communications companies, government-owned service providers, device manufacturers and operating system providers, any of whom could take actions that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to our products or services, which would, in turn, negatively impact our business. Moreover, government-initiated internet shutdowns have become increasingly common over the last decade. Any such shutdown in a market in which we operate could also negatively impact our business. The adoption or repeal of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the growth, popularity or use of the internet, including laws or practices limiting internet neutrality, could decrease the demand for, or the usage of, our products and services, increase our cost of doing business and adversely affect our results of operations.

Our success depends, in part, on the integrity of our information technology systems and infrastructure and on our ability to enhance, expand and adapt these systems and infrastructure in a timely and cost-effective manner.

In order for us to succeed, our information technology systems and infrastructure must perform well on a consistent basis. Our products and systems rely on software and hardware that is highly technical and complex, and depend on the ability of such software and hardware to store, retrieve, process and manage immense amounts of data. Despite internal testing, particularly when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released, our software may contain serious errors or defects, security vulnerabilities, or software bugs that are difficult to detect and correct, which we may be unable to successfully correct in a timely manner or at all. This could result in lost revenue, significant expenditures of capital, a delay or loss in market acceptance, and damage to our reputation and brand.

We have in the past experienced, and we may from time to time in the future experience, system interruptions that make some or all of our systems or data temporarily unavailable and prevent our products from functioning properly for our users; any such interruption could arise for any number of reasons, including human errors. Further, our systems and infrastructure are vulnerable to damage from fire, power loss, hardware errors, cyber-attacks, technical limitations, telecommunications failures, acts of God and similar events. While we have backup systems in place for certain aspects of our operations, not all of our systems and infrastructure are fully redundant. Disaster recovery planning can never account for all possible eventualities and our property and business interruption insurance coverage may not be adequate to compensate us fully for any losses that we may suffer. Any interruptions or outages, regardless of the cause, could negatively impact our users’ experiences with our products, tarnish our brands’ reputations and decrease demand for our products, any or all of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, even if detected, the resolution of such interruptions may take a long time, during which customers may not be able to access, or may have limited access to, the service. See “—Security breaches, improper access to or disclosure of our data or user data, other hacking and phishing attacks on our systems, or other cyber incidents could compromise the confidentiality and/or availability of sensitive information related to our business and/or personal data processed by us or on our behalf and expose us to liability, which could harm our reputation and materially adversely affect our business.”

We also continually work to update and enhance our software and systems and expand the efficiency and scalability of our technology and network systems to improve the experience of our users, accommodate substantial increases in the volume of traffic to our various products, ensure acceptable load times for our products and keep up with changes in technology and user preferences, as well as to respond to regulatory changes and evolving security risks and industry standards. Implementation of changes in our technology may cost more or take longer than originally expected and may require more testing than initially anticipated. Any failure to update and

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enhance our technology in a timely and cost-effective manner could materially adversely affect our users’ experience with our various products and thereby negatively impact the demand for our products, and could increase our costs, either of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, our future success will depend on our ability to adapt to emerging technologies such as tokenization, new authentication technologies, such as blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and cloud technologies. However, our efforts to adapt to emerging technologies may not always be successful and we may not make appropriate investments in new technologies, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As we increase our reliance on cloud-based applications and platforms to operate and deliver our products and services, any disruption or interference with these platforms could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

We continue to migrate a portion of our computing infrastructure to third party-hosted, cloud-based computing platforms. These migrations can be risky and may cause disruptions to the availability of our products due to service outages, downtime or other unforeseen issues that could increase our costs. We also may be subject to additional risk of cybersecurity breaches or other improper access to our data or confidential information during or following migrations to cloud-based computing platforms. In addition, cloud computing services may operate differently than anticipated when introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. As we increase our reliance on cloud-based computing services, our exposure to damage from service interruptions may increase. In the event any such issues arise, it may be difficult for us to switch our operations from our primary cloud-based providers to alternative providers. Further, any such transition could involve significant time and expense and could negatively impact our ability to deliver our products and services, which could harm our financial condition and results of operations.

If we are unable to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce intellectual property rights and successfully defend against claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of third-party intellectual property, it could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our commercial success depends in part on avoiding infringement, misappropriation or other violations of the intellectual property rights of third parties. However, we may become party to disputes from time to time over rights and obligations concerning intellectual property held by third parties, and we may not prevail in these disputes. Companies in the internet, technology and social media industries are subject to frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights. Many companies in these industries, including many of our competitors, have substantially larger intellectual property portfolios than we do, which could make us a target for litigation as we may not be able to assert counterclaims against parties that sue us for infringement, misappropriation or other violations of patent or other intellectual property rights. In addition, various “non-practicing entities” that own patents and other intellectual property rights often attempt to assert claims in order to extract value from technology companies and, given that these patent holding companies or other adverse intellectual property rights holders typically have no relevant product revenue, our own issued or pending patents and other intellectual property rights may provide little or no deterrence to these rights holders in bringing intellectual property rights claims against us. From time to time we receive claims from third parties which allege that we have infringed upon their intellectual property rights and we are also a party to several patent infringement litigations from such third parties. Further, from time to time we may introduce new products, product features and services, including in areas where we currently do not have an offering, which could increase our exposure to patent and other intellectual property claims from competitors and non-practicing entities. In addition, some of our agreements with third-party partners require us to indemnify them for certain intellectual property claims against them, which could require us to incur considerable costs in defending such claims, and may require us to pay significant damages in the event of an adverse ruling. Such third-party partners may also discontinue their relationships with us as a result of injunctions or otherwise, which could result in loss of revenue and adversely impact our business operations.

Although we try to ensure that our employees and consultants do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or our employees or consultants have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed intellectual property, including inventions, trade secrets, software code or other proprietary information, of a former employer or other third parties. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims and if we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Further, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who, in fact, conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. Additionally, any such assignment of intellectual property rights may not be self-executing, or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property.

As we face increasing competition and develop new products, we expect the number of patent and other intellectual property claims against us may grow. There may be intellectual property or other rights held by others, including issued or pending patents, that cover significant aspects of our products and services, and we cannot be sure that we are not infringing or violating, and have not infringed

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or violated, any third-party intellectual property rights or that we will not be held to have done so or be accused of doing so in the future.

Any claim or litigation alleging that we have infringed or otherwise violated intellectual property or other rights of third parties, with or without merit, and whether or not settled out of court or determined in our favor, could be time-consuming and costly to address and resolve, and could divert the time and attention of our management and technical personnel. Some of our competitors have substantially greater resources than we do and are able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could. The outcome of any litigation is inherently uncertain, and there can be no assurances that favorable final outcomes will be obtained in all cases. In addition, third parties may seek, and we may become subject to, preliminary or provisional rulings in the course of any such litigation, including potential preliminary injunctions requiring us to cease some or all of our operations. We may decide to settle such lawsuits and disputes on terms that are unfavorable to us. Similarly, if any litigation to which we are a party is resolved adversely, we may be subject to an unfavorable judgment that may not be reversed upon appeal, including being subject to a permanent injunction and being required to pay substantial monetary damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees, if we are found to have willfully infringed a party’s intellectual property rights. The terms of such a settlement or judgment may require us to cease some or all of our operations or pay substantial amounts to the other party. In addition, we may have to seek a license to continue practices found to be in violation of a third-party’s rights. If we are required, or choose to enter into royalty or licensing arrangements, such arrangements may not be available on reasonable terms, or at all, and may significantly increase our operating costs and expenses. Such arrangements may also only be available on a non-exclusive basis such that third parties, including our competitors, could have access to the same licensed technology to compete with us. As a result, we may also be required to develop or procure alternative non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort, time and expense, or discontinue use of the technology. There also can be no assurance that we would be able to develop or license suitable alternative technology to permit us to continue offering the affected products or services. If we cannot develop or license alternative technology for any allegedly infringing aspect of our business, we would be forced to limit our products and services and may be unable to compete effectively. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. Any of the foregoing, and any unfavorable resolution of such disputes and litigation, would materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may fail to adequately obtain, protect and maintain our intellectual property rights or prevent third parties from making unauthorized use of such rights.

Our intellectual property is a material asset of our business and our success depends in part on our ability to protect our proprietary rights and intellectual property. For example, we rely heavily upon our trademarks, designs, copyrights, related domain names, social media handles and logos to market our brands and to build and maintain brand loyalty and recognition. We also rely upon patents, proprietary technologies and trade secrets, as well as a combination of laws, and contractual restrictions, including confidentiality agreements with employees, customers, suppliers, affiliates and others, to establish, protect and enforce our various intellectual property rights. For example, we have generally registered and continue to apply to register and renew, or secure by contract where appropriate, trademarks and service marks as they are developed and used, and reserve, register and renew domain names and social media handles as we deem appropriate. If our trademarks and trade names are not adequately protected, then we may not be able to build and maintain name recognition in our markets of interest and our business may be adversely affected. Effective trademark protection may not be available or may not be sought in every country in which our products are made available, in every class of goods and services in which we operate, and contractual disputes may affect the use of marks governed by private contract. Our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names may be challenged, infringed, circumvented or declared generic or determined to be infringing on other marks. For example, third parties have challenged our “BUMBLE” trademarks in the United Kingdom (“UK”) and the EU, and if such challenges are successful, we could lose valuable trademark rights. Further, at times, competitors may adopt trade names or trademarks similar to ours, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. Similarly, not every variation of a domain name or social media handle may be available or be registered by us, even if available. The occurrence of any of these events could result in the erosion of our brands and limit our ability to market our brands using our various domain names and social media handles, as well as impede our ability to effectively compete against competitors with similar technologies or products, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We cannot guarantee that our efforts to obtain and maintain intellectual property rights are adequate, or that we have secured, or will be able to secure, appropriate permissions or protections for all of the intellectual property rights we use or rely on. Furthermore, even if we are able to obtain intellectual property rights, any challenge to our intellectual property rights could result in them being narrowed in scope or declared invalid or unenforceable. In addition, other parties may also independently develop technologies that are substantially similar or superior to ours and we may not be able to stop such parties from using such independently developed technologies and from competing with us.

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We also rely upon unpatented proprietary information and other trade secrets to protect intellectual property that may not be registrable, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. While it is our policy to enter into confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties to protect our proprietary expertise and other trade secrets, we cannot guarantee that we have entered into such agreements with each party that has or may have had access to our proprietary information or trade secrets and, even if entered into, these agreements may otherwise fail to effectively prevent disclosure of proprietary information, may be limited as to their term and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure or use of proprietary information. Monitoring unauthorized uses and disclosures is difficult, and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary technologies will be effective. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret can be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. Some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. In addition, trade secrets may be independently developed by others in a manner that could prevent legal recourse by us. If any of our confidential or proprietary information, such as our trade secrets, were to be disclosed or misappropriated, or if any such information was independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position would be materially adversely harmed.

Our intellectual property rights and the enforcement or defense of such rights may be affected by developments or uncertainty in laws and regulations relating to intellectual property rights. Moreover, many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement, misappropriation or other violation of our intellectual property or marketing of competing products in violation of our intellectual property rights generally.

We also may be forced to bring claims against third parties to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property or to enforce our intellectual property against its infringement, misappropriation or other violations by third parties. However, the measures we take to protect our intellectual property from unauthorized use by others may not be effective and there can be no assurance that our intellectual property rights will be sufficient to protect against others offering products or services that are substantially similar or superior to ours and that compete with our business. We may not prevail in any intellectual property-related proceedings that we initiate against third parties. Further, in such proceedings or in proceedings before patent, trademark and copyright agencies, our asserted intellectual property could be found to be invalid or unenforceable, in which case we could lose valuable intellectual property rights. In addition, even if we are successful in enforcing our intellectual property against third parties, the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Regardless of whether any such proceedings are resolved in our favor, such proceedings could cause us to incur significant expenses and could distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.

Despite the measures we take to protect our intellectual property rights, our intellectual property rights may still not be adequate and protected in a meaningful manner, challenges to contractual rights could arise, third parties could copy or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property without authorization, or laws and interpretations of laws regarding the enforceability of existing intellectual property rights may change over time in a manner that provides less protection. The occurrence of any of these events could impede our ability to effectively compete against competitors with similar technologies, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “—If we are unable to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce intellectual property rights and successfully defend against claims of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of third-party intellectual property, it could materially adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

Our use of “open source” software could subject our proprietary software to general release, adversely affect our ability to sell our products and services and subject us to possible litigation.

We use open source software in connection with a portion of our proprietary software and expect to continue to use open source software in the future. Under certain circumstances, some open source licenses require users of the licensed code to provide the user’s own proprietary source code to third parties upon request, or prohibit users from charging a fee to third parties in connection with the use of the user’s proprietary code. While we try to insulate our proprietary code from the effects of such open source license provisions, we cannot guarantee that we will be successful, that all open source software is reviewed prior to use in our products, that our developers have not incorporated open source software into our products, or that they will not do so in the future. Accordingly, we may face claims from others challenging our use of open source software, claiming ownership of, or seeking to enforce the license terms applicable to such open source software, including by demanding release of the open source software, derivative works or our proprietary source code that was developed or distributed with such software. Such claims could also require us to purchase a commercial license or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our software, any of which would have a negative effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, if the license terms for the open source code change, we may be forced to re-engineer our software or incur additional costs. Additionally, the terms of many open source licenses to which we are subject have not been interpreted by U.S. or foreign courts. There is a risk that open source software licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market or provide our products.

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Risks Related to Regulation and Litigation

Our business is subject to complex and evolving U.S. and international laws and regulations. Many of these laws and regulations are subject to change and uncertain interpretation, and could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations, or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business.

We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States and abroad that involve matters that are important to or may otherwise impact our business, including, among others, broadband internet access, online commerce, online safety, advertising, user privacy, data protection, cyber security, intermediary liability, protection of minors, consumer protection, general safety, sex-trafficking, labor and employment, taxation and securities law compliance. The introduction of new products, expansion of our activities in certain jurisdictions, or other actions that we may take may subject us to additional laws, regulations or other government scrutiny. In addition, foreign laws and regulations can impose different obligations or be more restrictive than those in the United States.

These U.S. federal, state, and municipal and foreign laws and regulations, which in some cases can be enforced by private parties in addition to government entities, are constantly evolving and can be subject to significant change. For example, on April 11, 2018, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act became effective in the United States, which allows victims of sex trafficking crimes, as well as other state and local authorities, to seek redress from platforms in certain circumstances in connection with sex trafficking of individuals online.

In addition, the introduction of new brands and products, or changes to existing brands and products, may result in new or enhanced governmental or regulatory scrutiny. As a result, the application, interpretation, and enforcement of these laws and regulations are often uncertain and difficult to predict, particularly in the new and rapidly-evolving industry in which we operate, and may be interpreted and applied inconsistently from state to state and country to country and inconsistently with our current policies and practices. These laws and regulations, as well as any associated inquiries or investigations or any other government actions, may be costly to comply with and may delay or impede the development of new products, require that we change or cease certain business practices, result in negative publicity, increase our operating costs, require significant management time and attention, and subject us to remedies that may harm our business, including fines, demands or orders that require us to modify or cease existing business practices. For example, a variety of laws and regulations govern the ability of users to cancel subscriptions and auto-payment renewals. We have in the past and may in the future be subject to claims under such laws and regulations that could materially adversely affect our business.

The promulgation of new laws or regulations, or the new interpretation of existing laws and regulations, in each case, that restrict or otherwise unfavorably impact our business, or our ability to provide or the manner in which we provide our services, could require us to change certain aspects of our business and operations to ensure compliance, which could decrease demand for services, reduce revenues, increase costs and subject us to additional liabilities. For example, U.S. courts have frequently interpreted Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) to require websites and web-based applications to be made fully accessible to individuals with disabilities. Though we have made enhancements to our products to improve accessibility, we may still become subject to claims that our apps are not fully compliant with the ADA, which may require us to make additional modifications to our products to provide enhanced or accessible services to, or make reasonable accommodations for, individuals, and could result in litigation, including class action lawsuits.

In addition, we are subject to various laws with regard to content moderation, such as the EU Digital Services Act, which may affect our business and operations and subject us to significant fines if such laws are interpreted and applied in a manner inconsistent with our practices. Other countries such as the United Kingdom are implementing similar legislation that impose penalties for failure to remove certain types of content. Similarly, in the United States, at the federal level, policymakers have discussed various legislative proposals that purport to limit or remove the protections afforded to technology platforms under the Communications Decency Act, which protect technology platforms from civil liability for certain type of content and actions of the platform’s users. If future legislation or governmental action is proposed or taken to address concerns regarding such harms, and if existing protections are limited or removed, changes could be required to our products that could restrict or impose additional costs upon the conduct of our business generally or cause users to abandon our products, which may in turn materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The adoption of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the popularity or growth in use of the internet or our services, including laws or regulations that undermine open and neutrally administered internet access, could decrease user demand for our service offerings and increase our cost of doing business. For example, in December 2017, the Federal Communications Commission adopted an order reversing net neutrality protections in the United States, including the repeal of specific rules against blocking, throttling or “paid prioritization” of content or services by internet service providers. To the extent internet service providers engage in such blocking, throttling or “paid prioritization” of content or similar actions as a result of this order and the adoption of similar laws or regulations, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

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Furthermore, we are subject to rules and regulations of the United States and abroad relating to export controls and economic sanctions, including, but not limited to, trade sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as the Export Administration Regulations administered by the Department of Commerce. These regulations may limit our ability to market, sell, distribute or otherwise transfer our products or technology to prohibited countries or persons. While we have taken steps to comply with these rules and regulations, a determination that we have failed to comply, whether knowingly or inadvertently, may result in substantial penalties, including fines, enforcement actions, civil and/or criminal sanctions, the disgorgement of profits, and may materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. See “—We operate in various international markets, including certain markets in which we have limited experience. As a result, we face additional risks in connection with certain of our international operations.”

We must comply with rapidly-evolving privacy and data protection laws across jurisdictions, and the failure to do so could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations, or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to access, collect, and use personal data about our users, payers and employees in a responsible way, and to comply with applicable data privacy laws. We process a significant volume of personal information and other regulated information both about our users and employees. There are numerous laws in the countries in which we operate regarding privacy and numerous laws that stipulate detailed requirements for the storage, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection of personal information, the scope of which are constantly changing, and in some cases, these laws are inconsistent and conflicting and subject to differing interpretations. As new laws of this nature are proposed and adopted across the world, we currently, and from time to time, may not be in technical compliance with all such laws. Such laws also are becoming increasingly rigorous and could be interpreted and applied in ways that may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. In addition, enforcement practices are likely to remain unpredictable for the foreseeable future.

Amongst other laws and regulations, we are and will continue to be subject to:

Elsewhere internationally, we are subject to additional and in some cases more stringent legal obligations concerning our treatment of user, employee and other personal information, such as laws regarding data localization and/or restrictions on data export, and legal requirements relating to the transfer of personal data across international borders that continue to evolve. For example, on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU struck down Privacy Shield, a frequently used, formerly permitted personal data transfer mechanism between the EU and the United States, which led to uncertainty about the legal basis for other transfers of personal data from the EU to third countries, including the United States. On March 25, 2022, the United States and the EU agreed in principle to a replacement for Privacy Shield, the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, which, together with an Executive Order signed by

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President Biden and new Department of Justice regulations, should enable the European Commission to permit the freer flow of data transfers between the EU and the United States. However, even if the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework is adopted, that will not foreclose future legal challenges to same. In addition to the ongoing legal uncertainty with respect to data transfers from the EU, additional costs may need to be incurred to implement necessary safeguards to comply with GDPR and potential new rules and restrictions on the flow of data across borders could increase the cost and complexity of conducting business in some markets.

Additionally, federal regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) continue to increase their focus on privacy and data security practices at technology and other companies. For example, in 2022, the FTC released an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to consider data security practices that harm consumers. The FTC has also continued enforcement actions against companies for privacy and data security violations, as evidenced by, among other privacy-related enforcement actions, a $5 billion fine against Facebook (now Meta) in July of 2019 and a $520 million settlement with Epic Games in December of 2022.

The myriad international and U.S. privacy and data breach laws are not consistent, and compliance in the event of a widespread data breach is difficult and may be costly. Moreover, relevant jurisdictions have been frequently amending existing laws, requiring constant attention to changing regulatory requirements. In addition to government regulation, privacy advocates and industry groups have and may in the future propose self-regulatory standards from time to time. These and other industry standards may legally or contractually apply to us, or we may elect to comply with such standards. We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws and regulations concerning data privacy and security, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. Because the interpretation and application of data protection laws, regulations, standards and other obligations are still uncertain, and often contradictory and in flux, it is possible that the scope and requirements of these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our practices and our efforts to comply with the evolving data protection rules may be unsuccessful. Failure to comply with evolving privacy laws could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations, or declines in user growth or engagement, or otherwise harm our business or our reputation, and to the extent that we need to alter our business model or practices to adapt to these obligations, we could incur additional expenses, which may in turn materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We are subject to litigation and adverse outcomes in such litigation could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

We are, and from time to time may become, subject to litigation and various legal proceedings, including litigation and proceedings related to intellectual property matters, privacy, data protection and consumer protection laws, as well as stockholder derivative suits, class action lawsuits, mass arbitrations, actions from former employees and other matters, that involve claims for substantial amounts of money or for other relief, results in significant costs for legal representation, arbitration fees, or other legal or related services, or that might necessitate changes to our business or operations. Further, because we strive for gender equality in relationships and empower women to make the first move on our platforms, we have been, and may continue to be, subject to discrimination lawsuits. The defense of these actions is time consuming and expensive and may subject us to remedies that may require us to modify or cease existing business. We evaluate these litigation claims and legal proceedings to assess the likelihood of unfavorable outcomes and to estimate, if possible, the amount of potential losses. Based on these assessments and estimates, we may establish reserves and/or disclose the relevant litigation claims or legal proceedings, as and when required or appropriate. These assessments and estimates are based on information available to management at the time of such assessment or estimation and involve a significant amount of judgment. As a result, actual outcomes or losses could differ materially from those envisioned by our current assessments and estimates. Our failure to successfully defend or settle any of these litigations or legal proceedings could result in liability that, to the extent not covered by our insurance, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. See Part I, “Item 3— Legal Proceedings” and Note 20, Commitments and Contingencies, to the audited consolidated financial statements included in “Item 8―Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.”

Online applications are subject to various laws and regulations relating to children’s privacy and protection, which if violated, could subject us to an increased risk of litigation and regulatory actions.

There are a variety of laws and regulations, some of which have been adopted in recent years, aimed at protecting children using the internet, such as Article 8 of the GDPR, the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act and the EU Digital Services Act. Although our products and services are intended for and targeted to adults only and we implement certain precautions to ensure that minors do not gain access to our application, no assurances can be given that such measures will be sufficient to completely avoid allegations of violations of such laws and regulations, any of which could expose us to significant liability, penalties, reputational harm and loss of revenue, among other things. Additionally, new regulations are being considered in various jurisdictions (such as proposed amendments to the e-Privacy Directive and the UK's draft Online Safety Bill) to, among other things, require the monitoring of user content, strengthen age assurance measures and expand the scope of what constitutes “online harm” to children. Such new regulations,

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or changes to existing regulations, could increase the cost of our operations and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to taxation related risks in multiple jurisdictions.

We are a U.S.-based multinational company subject to tax in multiple U.S. and foreign tax jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our global provision for income taxes, deferred tax assets or liabilities and in evaluating our tax positions on a worldwide basis. While we believe our tax positions are consistent with the tax laws in the jurisdictions in which we conduct our business, it is possible that these positions may be challenged by jurisdictional tax authorities, which may have a significant impact on our global provision for income taxes.

Tax laws are being re-examined and evaluated globally. New laws and interpretations of the law are taken into account for financial statement purposes in the quarter or year that they become applicable. Tax authorities are increasingly scrutinizing the tax positions of companies. Many countries in the European Union, as well as a number of other countries and organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Commission, are actively considering changes to existing tax laws that, if enacted, could increase our tax obligations in countries where we do business. These proposals include changes to the existing framework to calculate income tax, as well as proposals to change or impose new types of non-income taxes, including taxes based on a percentage of revenue. For example, several countries in the European Union have proposed or enacted taxes applicable to digital services, which includes business activities on social media platforms and online marketplaces, and would likely apply to our business. Many questions remain about the enactment, form and application of these digital services taxes. The interpretation and implementation of the various digital services taxes (especially if there is inconsistency in the application of these taxes across tax jurisdictions) could have a materially adverse impact on our business, results of operations and cash flows. Moreover, if the U.S. or other foreign tax authorities change applicable tax laws, our overall taxes could increase, and our business, financial condition or results of operations may be adversely impacted.

Action by governments to restrict access to Bumble app or our other products in their countries could substantially harm our business and financial results.

Governments from time to time seek to censor content available on Bumble app or our other products in their country, restrict access to our products from their country entirely, or impose other restrictions (including on third-party platforms that market and distribute our products) that may affect the accessibility of our products in their country for an extended period of time or indefinitely. For example, user access to Bumble app and certain of our other products may be restricted in China, whether for political reasons, in response to decisions we make regarding governmental requests, or otherwise. In addition, government authorities in other countries may seek to restrict user access to our products if they consider us to be in violation of their laws or a threat to public safety or for other reasons, such as considering the content on our platforms, or online dating and social connection services generally, immoral. For example, in September 2020 certain online dating platforms were banned in Pakistan for disseminating what it deemed to be “immoral and indecent” content. In the event that content shown on Bumble app or our other products is subject to censorship, access to our products is restricted, in whole or in part, in one or more countries, we are required to or elect to make changes to our operations, or other restrictions are imposed on our products, or our competitors are able to successfully penetrate new geographic markets or capture a greater share of existing geographic markets that we cannot access or where we face other restrictions, our ability to retain or increase our user base, user engagement, or the level of advertising by marketers may be adversely affected, we may not be able to maintain or grow our revenue as anticipated, and our financial results could be materially adversely affected.

Exposure to United Kingdom political developments, including the effect of its withdrawal from the European Union, could be costly and difficult to comply with and could harm our business.

A significant portion of our employees and operations are located in the United Kingdom. These operations continue to face risks and potential disruptions related to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, commonly referred to as “Brexit.” Although the United Kingdom and the European Union have entered into a trade and cooperation agreement, the long-term nature of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union remains unclear. While we continue to monitor these developments, the full effect of Brexit on our operations is uncertain and our business could be harmed by trade disputes or political differences between the United Kingdom and the European Union in the future.

Our business is subject to evolving corporate governance and public disclosure regulations and expectations, including with respect to environmental, social and governance matters, that could expose us to numerous risks.

We are subject to changing rules and regulations promulgated by a number of governmental and self-regulatory organizations, including the SEC, Nasdaq and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. These rules and regulations continue to evolve in scope and complexity and many new requirements have been created in response to laws enacted by Congress, making compliance more

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difficult and uncertain. In addition, increasingly regulators, customers, investors, employees and other stakeholders are focusing on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) matters and related disclosures. These changing rules, regulations and stakeholder expectations have resulted in, and are likely to continue to result in, increased general and administrative expenses and increased management time and attention spent complying with or meeting such regulations and expectations. For example, developing and acting on initiatives within the scope of ESG, and collecting, measuring and reporting ESG-related information and metrics can be costly, difficult and time consuming and is subject to evolving reporting standards, including the SEC’s recently proposed climate-related reporting requirements, and similar proposals by other international regulatory bodies. We may also communicate certain initiatives and goals, regarding environmental matters, diversity, responsible sourcing and social investments and other ESG-related matters, in our SEC filings or in other public disclosures. These initiatives and goals within the scope of ESG could be difficult and expensive to implement, the technologies needed to implement them may not be cost effective and may not advance at a sufficient pace, and we could be criticized for the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the disclosure. Further, statements about our ESG-related initiatives and goals, and progress against those goals, may be based on standards for measuring progress that are still developing, internal controls and processes that continue to evolve, and assumptions that are subject to change in the future. In addition, we could be criticized for the scope or nature of such initiatives or goals, or for any revisions to these goals. If our ESG-related data, processes and reporting are incomplete or inaccurate, or if we fail to achieve progress with respect to our goals within the scope of ESG on a timely basis, or at all, our reputation, business, financial performance and growth could be adversely affected.

Risks Related to Our Indebtedness

Our substantial indebtedness could materially adversely affect our financial condition, our ability to raise additional capital to fund our operations, our ability to operate our business, our ability to react to changes in the economy or our industry, our ability to meet our obligations under our outstanding indebtedness and could divert our cash flow from operations for debt payments.

We have a substantial amount of debt, which requires significant interest and principal payments. In connection with the Sponsor Acquisition, in January 2020, we entered into a senior secured term loan facility (the “Initial Term Loan Facility”) in an original aggregate principal amount of $575.0 million and a senior secured revolving credit facility (the “Revolving Credit Facility”) in an aggregate principal amount of up to $50.0 million. In October 2020, we entered into an incremental senior secured term loan facility (the “Incremental Term Loan Facility” and, together with the Initial Term Loan Facility, the “Term Loan Facility” the Term Loan Facility together with the Revolving Credit Facility, the “Senior Secured Credit Facilities”) in an original aggregate principal amount of $275.0 million. We used a portion of the proceeds from our IPO to repay approximately $200.0 million in aggregate principal amount under the Term Loan Facility. As of December 31, 2022, we had $632.8 million of indebtedness outstanding. Subject to the limits contained in the credit agreement entered into on January 29, 2020, among the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Buzz Bidco LLC, Buzz Merger Sub, and Buzz Finco LLC (as subsequently amended, the “Credit Agreement”) that governs our Senior Secured Credit Facilities, we may be able to incur substantial additional debt from time to time to finance working capital, capital expenditures, investments or acquisitions, or for other purposes. If we do so, the risks related to our high level of debt could increase. Specifically, our high level of debt could have important consequences, including the following:

We are a holding company, and our consolidated assets are owned by, and our business is conducted through, our subsidiaries. Revenue from these subsidiaries is our primary source of funds for debt payments and operating expenses. If our subsidiaries are restricted from making distributions to us, our ability to meet our debt service obligations or otherwise fund our operations may be impaired. Moreover, there may be restrictions on payments by subsidiaries to their parent companies under applicable laws, including

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laws that require companies to maintain minimum amounts of capital and to make payments to stockholders only from profits. As a result, although a subsidiary of ours may have cash, we may not be able to obtain that cash to satisfy our obligation to service our outstanding debt or fund our operations.

Our ability to make scheduled payments on and to refinance our indebtedness depends on and is subject to our financial and operating performance, which in turn is affected by general and regional economic, financial, competitive, business and other factors and reimbursement actions of governmental and commercial payers, all of which are beyond our control, including the availability of financing in the international banking and capital markets. We cannot assure you that our business will generate sufficient cash flow from operations or that future borrowings will be available to us in an amount sufficient to enable us to service our debt, to refinance our debt or to fund our other liquidity needs. Any refinancing or restructuring of our indebtedness could be at higher interest rates and may require us to comply with more onerous covenants that could further restrict our business operations. Moreover, in the event of a default, the holders of our indebtedness could elect to declare such indebtedness to be due and payable and/or elect to exercise other rights, such as the lenders under our Revolving Credit Facility terminating their commitments thereunder and ceasing to make further loans or the lenders under our Senior Secured Credit Facilities instituting foreclosure proceedings against their collateral, any of which could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

Furthermore, all of the debt under our Senior Secured Credit Facilities bears interest at variable rates. We have recently experienced higher interest expense on our Senior Secured Credit Facilities due to interest rate increases and, if interest rates continue to increase, our debt service obligations on our Senior Secured Credit Facilities would further increase even though the amount borrowed remained the same, especially if our hedging strategies do not effectively mitigate the effects of these increases, and our net income and cash flows, including cash available for servicing our indebtedness, would correspondingly decrease. In addition, our variable rate indebtedness has historically used the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) as a benchmark for establishing the rate of interest and was hedged with LIBOR-based interest rate derivatives. On January 1, 2022, the publication of the one-week and two-month U.S. Dollar LIBOR maturities and all non-U.S. Dollar LIBOR maturities ceased and the remaining U.S. Dollar LIBOR maturities will cease immediately after June 30, 2023. Accordingly, the Company will transition its financing, funding and hedging portfolios to an alternative reference rate, such as the Term Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“Term SOFR”), prior to the cessation of publication of U.S. Dollar LIBOR on June 30, 2023. As a result, the amount of interest that becomes payable under our Senior Secured Credit Facilities based on Term SOFR or other alternative reference rates may fluctuate from the amount of interest paid on traditional LIBOR based borrowings and derivatives and the transition to Term SOFR or other reference rates could result in an increase in our borrowing costs and the cost of our variable rate indebtedness.

Certain of our debt agreements impose significant operating and financial restrictions on us and our subsidiaries, which may prevent us from capitalizing on business opportunities.

The Credit Agreement that governs our Senior Secured Credit Facilities imposes significant operating and financial restrictions on us. These restrictions will limit our ability and/or the ability of our subsidiaries to, among other things:

Furthermore, if our borrowings under the Revolving Credit Facility exceed certain thresholds, the Credit Agreement requires Buzz Finco L.L.C. to maintain, as of the last day of each four fiscal quarter periods, a maximum consolidated first lien net leverage ratio of 5.75 to 1.00 (subject to customary equity cure rights). As a result of these restrictions, we are limited as to how we conduct our business and we may be unable to raise additional debt or equity financing to compete effectively or to take advantage of new business opportunities. The terms of any future indebtedness we may incur could include similar or more restrictive covenants. We cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain compliance with these covenants in the future and, if we fail to do so, that we will be able

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to obtain waivers from the lenders and/or amend the covenants. Our failure to comply with the restrictive or financial covenants described above as well as the terms of any future indebtedness could result in an event of default, which, if not cured or waived, could result in us being required to repay these borrowings before their due date. If we are forced to refinance these borrowings on less favorable terms or are unable to refinance these borrowings, our results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

Risks Related to Our Organizational Structure

Bumble Inc. is a holding company and its only material asset is its interest in Bumble Holdings, and it is accordingly dependent upon distributions from Bumble Holdings to pay taxes, make payments under the tax receivable agreement and pay dividends.

Bumble Inc. is a holding company and has no material assets other than its ownership of Common Units. Bumble Inc. has no independent means of generating revenue. Bumble Inc. intends to cause Bumble Holdings to make distributions to holders of its Common Units, including Bumble Inc. and our Pre-IPO Common Unitholders, and Incentive Units in an amount sufficient to cover all applicable taxes at assumed tax rates, payments under the tax receivable agreement and dividends, if any, declared by it. Deterioration in the financial condition, earnings or cash flow of Bumble Holdings and its subsidiaries for any reason could limit or impair their ability to pay such distributions. Additionally, to the extent that Bumble Inc. needs funds, and Bumble Holdings is restricted from making such distributions under applicable law or regulation or under the terms of our financing arrangements, or is otherwise unable to provide such funds, such restriction could materially adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition.

We anticipate that Bumble Holdings will continue to be treated as a partnership for U.S. federal income tax purposes and, as such, generally will not be subject to any entity-level U.S. federal income tax. Instead, taxable income or loss is allocated to holders of Common Units, including us, and Incentive Units. Accordingly, we are required to pay income taxes on our allocable share of any net taxable income of Bumble Holdings. Legislation that is effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017 may impute liability for adjustments to a partnership’s tax return to the partnership itself in certain circumstances, absent an election to the contrary. Bumble Holdings may be subject to material liabilities pursuant to this legislation and related guidance if, for example, its calculations of taxable income are incorrect. In addition, the income taxes on our allocable share of Bumble Holding’s net taxable income will increase over time as our Pre-IPO Common Unitholders and/or Incentive Unitholders exchange their Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) for shares of our Class A common stock. Such increase in our tax expenses may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Under the terms of the amended and restated limited partnership agreement, Bumble Holdings is obligated to make tax distributions to holders of Common Units, including us, and Incentive Units at certain assumed tax rates. These tax distributions may in certain periods exceed our tax liabilities and obligations to make payments under the tax receivable agreement. Our Board of Directors, in its sole discretion, will make any determination from time to time with respect to the use of any such excess cash so accumulated, which may include, among other uses, funding repurchases of Class A common stock; acquiring additional newly issued Common Units from Bumble Holdings at a per unit price determined by reference to the market value of the Class A common stock; paying dividends, which may include special dividends, on its Class A common stock; or any combination of the foregoing. We will have no obligation to distribute such cash (or other available cash other than any declared dividend) to our stockholders. To the extent that we do not distribute such excess cash as dividends on our Class A common stock or otherwise undertake ameliorative actions between Common Units, Incentive Units and shares of Class A common stock and instead, for example, hold such cash balances, holders of our Common Units (other than Bumble Inc.) and Incentive Units may benefit from any value attributable to such cash balances as a result of their ownership of Class A common stock following a redemption or exchange of their Common Units, notwithstanding that such holders of our Common Units (other than Bumble Inc.) and Incentive Units may previously have participated as holders of Common Units and Incentive Units in distributions by Bumble Holdings that resulted in such excess cash balances at Bumble Inc.

Payments of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors after taking into account various factors, including our business, operating results and financial condition, current and anticipated cash needs, plans for expansion and any legal or contractual limitations on our ability to pay dividends. Our existing Senior Secured Credit Facilities include, and any financing arrangement that we enter into in the future may include, restrictive covenants that limit our ability to pay dividends. In addition, Bumble Holdings is generally prohibited under Delaware law from making a distribution to a limited partner to the extent that, at the time of the distribution, after giving effect to the distribution, liabilities of Bumble Holdings (with certain exceptions) exceed the fair value of its assets. Subsidiaries of Bumble Holdings are generally subject to similar legal limitations on their ability to make distributions to Bumble Holdings.

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Bumble Inc. will be required to pay certain of our pre-IPO owners for most of the benefits relating to tax depreciation or amortization deductions that we may claim as a result of Bumble Inc.’s allocable share of existing tax basis acquired in the IPO, Bumble Inc.’s increase in its allocable share of existing tax basis and anticipated tax basis adjustments we receive in connection with sales or exchanges of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) in connection with or after the IPO and our utilization of certain tax attributes of the Blocker Companies.

We entered into a tax receivable agreement with certain of our pre-IPO owners that provides for the payment by Bumble Inc. to such pre-IPO owners of 85% of the benefits, if any, that Bumble Inc. realizes, or is deemed to realize (calculated using certain assumptions), as a result of (i) Bumble Inc.’s allocable share of existing tax basis acquired in the IPO, (ii) increases in Bumble Inc.’s allocable share of existing tax basis and adjustments to the tax basis of the tangible and intangible assets of Bumble Holdings as a result of sales or exchanges of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) for shares of Class A common stock in connection with or after the IPO and (iii) Bumble Inc.’s utilization of certain tax attributes of the Blocker Companies (including the Blocker Companies’ allocable share of existing tax basis), and (iv) certain other tax benefits related to entering into the tax receivable agreement, including tax benefits attributable to payments under the tax receivable agreement. The existing tax basis, increases in existing tax basis and tax basis adjustments generated over time may increase (for tax purposes) the depreciation and amortization deductions available to Bumble Inc. and, therefore, may reduce the amount of tax that Bumble Inc. would otherwise be required to pay in the future, although the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) may challenge all or part of the validity of that tax basis, and a court could sustain such a challenge. Actual tax benefits realized by Bumble Inc. may differ from tax benefits calculated under the tax receivable agreement as a result of the use of certain assumptions in the tax receivable agreement, including the use of an assumed weighted-average state and local income tax rate to calculate tax benefits.

The payment obligation under the tax receivable agreement is an obligation of Bumble Inc. and not of Bumble Holdings. While the amount of existing tax basis and anticipated tax basis adjustments and utilization of tax attributes, as well as the amount and timing of any payments under the tax receivable agreement, will vary depending upon a number of factors, we expect the payments that Bumble Inc. may make under the tax receivable agreement will be substantial. The actual amounts payable will depend upon, among other things, the timing of purchases or exchanges, the price of shares of our Class A common stock at the time of such purchases or exchanges, the extent to which such purchases or exchanges are taxable and the amount and timing of our taxable income. The payments under the tax receivable agreement are not conditioned upon continued ownership of us by the pre-IPO owners. For additional information see “—In certain cases, payments under the tax receivable agreement may be accelerated and/or significantly exceed the actual benefits Bumble Inc. realizes in respect of the tax attributes subject to the tax receivable agreement.”, “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Contractual Obligations” and Note 6, Payable to Related Parties Pursuant to a Tax Receivable Agreement, to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report.

In certain cases, payments under the tax receivable agreement may be accelerated and/or significantly exceed the actual benefits Bumble Inc. realizes in respect of the tax attributes subject to the tax receivable agreement.

Bumble Inc.’s payment obligations under the tax receivable agreement will be accelerated in the event of certain changes of control, upon a breach by Bumble Inc. of a material obligation under the tax receivable agreement or if Bumble Inc. elects to terminate the tax receivable agreement early. The accelerated payments required in such circumstances will be calculated by reference to the present value (at a discount rate equal to the lesser of (i) 6.5% per annum and (ii) one year LIBOR (or its successor rate) plus 100 basis points) of all future payments that holders of Common Units or other recipients would have been entitled to receive under the tax receivable agreement, and such accelerated payments and any other future payments under the tax receivable agreement will utilize certain valuation assumptions, including that Bumble Inc. will have sufficient taxable income to fully utilize the deductions arising from the increased tax deductions and tax basis and other benefits related to entering into the tax receivable agreement and sufficient taxable income to fully utilize any remaining net operating losses subject to the tax receivable agreement on a straight line basis over the shorter of the statutory expiration period for such net operating losses or the five-year period after the early termination or change of control. In addition, recipients of payments under the tax receivable agreement will not reimburse us for any payments previously made under the tax receivable agreement if the tax attributes or Bumble Inc.’s utilization of tax attributes underlying the relevant tax receivable agreement payment are successfully challenged by the IRS (although any such detriment would be taken into account as an offset against future payments due to the relevant recipient under the tax receivable agreement). Bumble Inc.’s ability to achieve benefits from any existing tax basis, tax basis adjustments or other tax attributes, and the payments to be made under the tax receivable agreement will depend upon a number of factors, including the timing and amount of our future income. As a result, even in the absence of a change of control or an election to terminate the tax receivable agreement early, payments under the tax receivable agreement could be in excess of 85% of Bumble Inc.’s actual cash tax benefits.

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Accordingly, it is possible that the actual cash tax benefits realized by Bumble Inc. may be significantly less than the corresponding tax receivable agreement payments. It is also possible that payments under the tax receivable agreement may be made years in advance of the actual realization, if any, of the anticipated future tax benefits. There may be a material negative effect on our liquidity if the payments under the tax receivable agreement exceed the actual cash tax benefits that Bumble Inc. realizes in respect of the tax attributes subject to the tax receivable agreement and/or if distributions to Bumble Inc. by Bumble Holdings are not sufficient to permit Bumble Inc. to make payments under the tax receivable agreement after it has paid taxes and other expenses. Based upon certain assumptions, we estimate that if Bumble Inc. had exercised its termination right as of December 31, 2022, the aggregate amount of the early termination payments before application of the discount rate required under the tax receivable agreement would have been approximately $1,043 million. The foregoing number is merely an estimate and the actual payments could differ materially. We may need to incur additional indebtedness to finance payments under the tax receivable agreement to the extent our cash resources are insufficient to meet our obligations under the tax receivable agreement as a result of timing discrepancies or otherwise, and these obligations could have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing certain mergers, asset sales, other forms of business combinations or other changes of control.

The acceleration of payments under the tax receivable agreement in the case of certain changes of control may impair our ability to consummate change of control transactions or negatively impact the value received by owners of our Class A common stock.

In the case of certain changes of control, payments under the tax receivable agreement will be accelerated and may significantly exceed the actual benefits Bumble Inc. realizes in respect of the tax attributes subject to the tax receivable agreement. We expect that the payments that we may make under the tax receivable agreement in the event of a change of control will be substantial. As a result, our accelerated payment obligations and/or the assumptions adopted under the tax receivable agreement in the case of a change of control may impair our ability to consummate change of control transactions or negatively impact the value received by owners of our Class A common stock in a change of control transaction.

Risks Related to Ownership of our Class A Common Stock

Our Principal Stockholders control us and their interests may conflict with ours or yours in the future.

As of the date of this Annual Report, our Principal Stockholders beneficially own approximately 92% of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock. Moreover, we nominate to our Board individuals designated by our Principal Stockholders in accordance with the stockholders agreement. Our Principal Stockholders have the right to designate directors subject to the maintenance of certain ownership requirements in us. Even when our Principal Stockholders cease to own shares of our stock representing a majority of the total voting power, for so long as our Principal Stockholders continue to own a significant percentage of our stock, they will still be able to significantly influence or effectively control the composition of our Board of Directors and the approval of actions requiring stockholder approval through their voting power. Accordingly, for such period of time, our Principal Stockholders will have significant influence with respect to our management, business plans and policies, including the appointment and removal of our officers. In particular, for so long as our Sponsor continues to own a significant percentage of our stock, our Sponsor will be able to cause or prevent a change of control of our company or a change in the composition of our Board of Directors and could preclude any unsolicited acquisition of our company. The concentration of ownership could deprive you of an opportunity to receive a premium for your shares of Class A common stock as part of a sale of our company and ultimately might affect the market price of our Class A common stock.

In addition, as of the date of this Annual Report, the Pre-IPO Common Unitholders (which include our Sponsor and our Founder) own approximately 31% of the Common Units. Because they hold their ownership interest in our business directly in Bumble Holdings, rather than through Bumble Inc., the Pre-IPO Common Unitholders may have conflicting interests with holders of shares of our Class A common stock. For example, if Bumble Holdings makes distributions to Bumble Inc., the Pre-IPO Common Unitholders and participating Incentive Unitholders (as described below) will also be entitled to receive such distributions pro rata in accordance with the percentages of their respective Common Units or Incentive Units, as applicable, in Bumble Holdings and their preferences as to the timing and amount of any such distributions may differ from those of our public stockholders. Incentive Units are not entitled to receive distributions (other than tax distributions) until holders of Common Units have received a minimum return as provided in the amended and restated limited partnership agreement of Bumble Holdings. However, Incentive Units have the benefit of adjustment provisions that will reduce the participation threshold for distributions in respect of which they do not participate until there is no participation threshold, at which time the Incentive Units would participate pro rata with distributions on Common Units. Our pre-IPO owners may also have different tax positions from us which could influence their decisions regarding whether and when to dispose of assets, especially in light of the tax receivable agreement, whether and when to incur new or refinance existing indebtedness, and whether and when Bumble Inc. should terminate the tax receivable agreement and accelerate its obligations thereunder. In addition, the structuring of future transactions may take into consideration our pre-IPO owners’ tax or other considerations even where no similar benefit would accrue to us.

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Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation does not limit the ability of our Principal Stockholders to compete with us and they may have investments in businesses whose interests conflict with ours.

Our Principal Stockholders and their respective affiliates engage in a broad spectrum of activities, including investments in businesses that may compete with us. In the ordinary course of their business activities, our Principal Stockholders and their respective affiliates may engage in activities where their interests conflict with our interests or those of our stockholders. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that none of our Principal Stockholders or any of their respective affiliates or any of our directors who are not employed by us (including any non-employee director who serves as one of our officers in both his or her director and officer capacities) or his or her affiliates will have any duty to refrain from engaging, directly or indirectly, in the same business activities or similar business activities or lines of business in which we operate. Our Principal Stockholders and their respective affiliates also may pursue acquisition opportunities that may be complementary to our business, and, as a result, those acquisition opportunities may not be available to us. In addition, our Principal Stockholders may have an interest in our pursuing acquisitions, divestitures and other transactions that, in their judgment, could enhance their investment, even though such transactions might involve risks to us and our stockholders.

We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq rules and, as a result, we qualify for exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements. If we rely on such exemptions in the future, you will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to such requirements.

Our Principal Stockholders are parties to a stockholders agreement and, as of the date of this Annual Report, beneficially own approximately 92% of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock. As a result, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards. Under these corporate governance standards, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power in the election of directors is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements. For example, controlled companies:

Although we do not currently rely on the exemptions from these corporate governance requirements, if we do rely on such exemptions in the future, you will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of Nasdaq.

We incur increased costs and are subject to additional regulations and requirements as a result of becoming a public company, which could lower our profits, make it more difficult to run our business or divert management’s attention from our business.

As a public company, we are required to commit significant resources and management time and attention to the requirements of being a public company, which causes us to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we had not incurred as a private company, including costs associated with public company reporting requirements. We ceased to be an “emerging growth company” on December 31, 2022, and are no longer eligible for reduced disclosure requirements and exemptions applicable to emerging growth companies. We expect that our loss of emerging growth company status will require additional attention from management and will result in increased costs to us, which could include higher legal fees, accounting fees and fees associated with investor relations activities, among others. We also incur costs associated with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes- Oxley Act”) and related rules implemented by the SEC and Nasdaq, and compliance with these requirements place significant demands on our legal, accounting and finance staff and on our accounting, financial and information systems. In addition, we might not be successful in implementing these requirements. The expenses incurred by public companies generally for reporting and corporate governance purposes have been increasing. We expect these rules and regulations to continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some activities more time-consuming and costly. These laws and regulations also could make it more difficult or costly for us to obtain certain types of insurance, and in certain cases has, including director and officer liability insurance, and we may be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage, higher retention, or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. These laws and regulations could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board of Directors, our Board committees or as our executive officers. Furthermore, if we are unable to satisfy our obligations as a public company, we could be subject to delisting of our Class A common stock, fines, sanctions and other regulatory action and potentially civil litigation.

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If we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements or comply with applicable laws and regulations could be impaired.

As a public company, we are subject to rules and regulations established by the SEC and Nasdaq. These rules and regulations require, among other things, that we establish and periodically evaluate procedures with respect to our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Additionally, on December 31, 2022, we ceased to be an “emerging growth company” which therefore, pursuant to Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, expedited our obligation for our independent registered public accounting firm to issue an attestation report on management’s assessment of our internal controls over financial reporting and accelerated our adoption of accounting standards.

In order to maintain and improve the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, we have expended, and anticipate that we will continue to expend, significant resources, including accounting-related costs and significant management oversight. If we identify deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting or if we are unable to comply with the requirements applicable to us as a public company, in a timely manner or at all, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results, we may fail to meet our reporting obligations within the timeframes required by the SEC, we may have to restate our financial statements for prior periods, and/or our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to issue an unqualified opinion regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in the event that they are not satisfied with the level at which our internal control over financial reporting is documented, designed, or operating. If this occurs, we could become subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, or we may not be able to remain listed on Nasdaq. In addition, if we determine or our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, this could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, we may face restricted access to capital markets, and the market price for our Class A common stock may be adversely affected. For example, during the quarter ended September 30, 2022, we identified misstatements in the recognition and presentation of certain debt issuance costs within prior periods which indicated that a material weakness existed within our internal controls for those prior periods, which has been remediated and corrected.

We cannot predict the impact our dual class structure may have on the market price of our Class A common stock.

We cannot predict whether our dual class structure will result in a lower or more volatile market price of our Class A common stock, in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. Certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple class share structures in certain of their indices. For example, S&P Dow Jones has stated that companies with multiple share classes will not be eligible for inclusion in the S&P Composite 1500 (composed of the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600), although existing index constituents in July 2017 were grandfathered. Under the announced policies, our dual class capital structure would make us ineligible for inclusion in any of these indices. Given the sustained flow of investment funds into passive strategies that seek to track certain indices, exclusion from stock indices would likely preclude investment by many of these funds and could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be materially adversely affected.

The outsized voting rights of our Principal Stockholders have the effect of concentrating voting control with our Principal Stockholders, limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and may have a potential adverse effect on the price of our Class A common stock.

In general, each share of our Class A common stock entitles its holder to one vote on all matters on which stockholders of Bumble Inc. are entitled to vote generally. Shares of Class B common stock have no economic rights but each share generally entitles each holder, without regard to the number of shares of Class B common stock held by such holder, to a number of votes that is equal to the aggregate number of Common Units held by such holder on all matters on which stockholders of Bumble Inc. are entitled to vote generally. Holders of shares of our Class B common stock vote together with holders of our Class A common stock as a single class on all matters on which stockholders are entitled to vote generally, except as otherwise required by law. Notwithstanding the foregoing, unless they elect otherwise, each of our Principal Stockholders is entitled to outsized voting rights as follows. Until the High Vote Termination Date, each share of Class A common stock held by a Principal Stockholder entitles such Principal Stockholder to ten votes and each Principal Stockholder that holds Class B common stock is entitled, without regard to the number of shares of Class B common stock held by such Principal Stockholder, to a number of votes equal to 10 times the aggregate number of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) of Bumble Holdings held by such Principal Stockholder. In addition, if, at any time, our Founder is neither an employee nor a director, any Class A common stock or Class B common stock held by our Founder will be entitled to one vote per share (in the case of the Class A common stock) or a number of votes that is equal to the aggregate number of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) of Bumble Holdings held by our Founder (in the case of the Class B common stock), in each case on all matters on which stockholders of Bumble Inc. are entitled to vote generally. The difference in voting rights subject us to numerous risks that could adversely affect the value of our Class A common stock by, for example, delaying or deferring a change of control or if investors view, or any potential future purchaser of our company views, the superior voting rights of our Principal Stockholders to have value.

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Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class A and Class B common stock held by our Principal Stockholders, on the one hand, and Class A and Class B common stock held by individuals other than our Principal Stockholders, on the other hand, the Principal Stockholders collectively control a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock and therefore are able to control all matters submitted to our shareholders. This concentrated control limits or precludes the ability of other holders of Class A common stock to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future, which, in turn increases the risk of divergent views over strategy or business combination and an increased risk of conflict or litigation caused by such divergent views.

In addition, any shares of Class A common stock or Common Units purchased or otherwise acquired by the Principal Stockholders after the IPO would also entitle the Principal Stockholders to outsized voting rights until the High Vote Termination Date. Consequently, the voting power of our Principal Stockholders, and the disparity between the voting power held by our Principal Stockholders and the level of their economic interest, would increase if they acquired additional shares of Class A common stock or Common Units after the IPO. Moreover, our Principal Stockholders would retain this disparate voting power even if they have engaged in hedging or other transactions that have offset their economic exposure. Further, our voting structure poses a risk that even if our Principal Stockholders hold relatively small economic interests, prior to the High Vote Termination Date they could potentially use their outsized voting control to approve further changes in governance to the detriment of non-controlling holders of Class A common stock, which could result in delisting under Nasdaq listing requirements, resulting in reduced liquidity and loss of value for investors.

Furthermore, certain stock market index providers have implemented restrictions on including companies with multiple class share structures in certain of their indices, which would preclude investment by certain investors and could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be adversely affected. See “—We cannot predict the impact our dual class structure may have on the market price of our Class A common stock.”

You may be diluted by the future issuance of additional Class A common stock or Common Units in connection with our incentive plans, acquisitions or otherwise.

As of January 31, 2023, we have 5,869,830,955 shares of Class A common stock authorized but unissued, including 58,737,533 shares of Class A common stock issuable upon exchange of Common Units that are held by the Pre-IPO Common Unitholders. Our certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue these shares of Class A common stock and options, rights, warrants and appreciation rights relating to Class A common stock for the consideration and on the terms and conditions established by our Board of Directors in its sole discretion, whether in connection with acquisitions or otherwise. Similarly, the amended and restated limited partnership agreement of Bumble Holdings permits Bumble Holdings to issue an unlimited number of additional limited partnership interests of Bumble Holdings with designations, preferences, rights, powers and duties that are different from, and may be senior to, those applicable to the Common Units, and which may be exchangeable for shares of our Class A common stock. Additionally, we have reserved an aggregate of 43,665,212 shares of Class A common stock or Common Units for issuance under our Omnibus Incentive Plan, including shares of Class A common stock issuable following vesting and upon exchange for 10,589,991 as-converted Incentive Units held by the Incentive Unitholders with a weighted average participation threshold of $13.85 per unit. There are also 4,500,000 shares of Class A common stock reserved for issuance under our 2021 Employee Stock Purchase Plan (“ESPP”). Any Class A common stock that we issue, including under our Omnibus Incentive Plan, our ESPP or other equity incentive plans that we may adopt in the future, would dilute the percentage ownership held by investors who purchase Class A common stock.

We may issue preferred stock whose terms could materially adversely affect the voting power or value of our Class A common stock.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue, without the approval of our stockholders, one or more classes or series of preferred stock having such designations, preferences, limitations and relative rights, including preferences over our Class A common stock respecting dividends and distributions, as our Board of Directors may determine. The terms of one or more classes or series of preferred stock could adversely impact the voting power or value of our Class A common stock. For example, we might grant holders of preferred stock the right to elect some number of our directors in all events or on the happening of specified events or the right to veto specified transactions. Similarly, the repurchase or redemption rights or liquidation preferences we might assign to holders of preferred stock could affect the residual value of the Class A common stock.

If we or our pre-IPO owners sell additional shares of our Class A common stock or are perceived by the public markets as intending to sell them, the market price of our Class A common stock could decline.

The sale of substantial amounts of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could harm the prevailing market price of shares of our Class A common stock. These sales, or the possibility that these sales may occur, also might make it more difficult for us to sell shares of our Class A common stock in the future at a time and at a price that we deem appropriate. In addition, our Sponsor has pledged substantially all of the shares of our Class A common stock held by it pursuant to a margin loan agreement and any foreclosure upon those shares could result in sales of a substantial number of shares of

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our Class A common stock in the public market, which could substantially decrease the market price of our Class A common stock. As of January 31, 2023, we have a total of 130,169,045 shares of our Class A common stock outstanding. Of these shares, 86,206,919 shares of our Class A common stock were freely tradable without restriction or further registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), by persons other than our “affiliates,” as that term is defined under Rule 144 of the Securities Act.

In addition, we and the holders of our Common Units have entered into an exchange agreement under which they (or certain permitted transferees) have the right to exchange their Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) for shares of our Class A common stock on a one-for-one basis, subject to customary conversion rate adjustments. Subject to the terms of the exchange agreement, an aggregate of 58,737,533 Common Units may be exchanged for shares of our Class A common stock. Any shares we issue upon exchange of Common Units will be “restricted securities” as defined in Rule 144 and may not be sold in the absence of registration under the Securities Act unless an exemption from registration is available, including the exemptions contained in Rule 144. Under applicable SEC guidance, we believe that for purposes of Rule 144 the holding period in such shares will generally include the holding period in the corresponding Common Units exchanged.

Subject to certain limitations and exceptions, pursuant to the terms of the amended and restated limited partnership agreement of Bumble Holdings, the Incentive Unitholders, which hold 10,589,991 Incentive Units as of January 31, 2023, which have a weighted-average per unit participation threshold of $13.85 per Incentive Unit, will have the right to convert their vested Incentive Units into Common Units of Bumble Holdings. Common Units received upon conversion will be exchangeable on a one-for-one basis for shares of Class A common stock of Bumble Inc. in accordance with the terms of the exchange agreement. Assuming such Incentive Units are fully vested, as of January 31, 2023, 4,930,630 shares of Class A common stock would be issuable upon the exchange of an equivalent number of Common Units into which outstanding Incentive Units (assuming such Incentive Units are converted to Common Units) that are held by the Incentive Unitholders may be converted. The delivery of shares of Class A common stock upon exchange of Common Units received in conversion of Incentive Units will be registered on one or more registration statements on Form S-8.

All of such shares will be eligible for resale in the public market, subject, in the case of shares held by our affiliates, to volume, manner of sale and other limitations under Rule 144. We expect that our Sponsor will continue to be considered an affiliate based on its expected share ownership and its board nomination rights. Certain other of our stockholders may also be considered affiliates at the time of their sale of shares of our Class A common stock. However, the holders of these shares of Class A common stock will have the right, subject to certain exceptions and conditions, to require us to register their shares of Class A common stock under the Securities Act, and they will have the right to participate in future registrations of securities by us. Registration of any of these outstanding shares of Class A common stock would result in such shares becoming freely tradable without compliance with Rule 144 upon effectiveness of the registration statement.

We have filed a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act to register shares of our Class A common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of our Class A common stock issued pursuant to our Omnibus Incentive Plan and our ESPP. Accordingly, shares registered under such registration statements will be available for sale in the open market.

In the future, we may also issue our securities in connection with investments or acquisitions. The amount of shares of our Class A common stock issued in connection with an investment or acquisition could constitute a material portion of our then outstanding shares of Class A common stock. As restrictions on resale end, the market price of our shares of common stock could drop significantly if the holders of these restricted shares sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to raise additional funds through future offerings of our Class A common stock or other securities or to use our Class A common stock as consideration for acquisitions of other businesses, investments or other corporate purposes.

Anti-takeover provisions in our organizational documents and Delaware law might discourage or delay acquisition attempts for us that you might consider favorable.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that may make the merger or acquisition of our company more difficult without the approval of our Board of Directors. Among other things, these provisions:

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Further, as a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to provisions of Delaware law, which may impede or discourage a takeover attempt that our stockholders may find beneficial. These anti-takeover provisions and other provisions under Delaware law could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of our company, including actions that our stockholders may deem advantageous, or negatively affect the trading price of our Class A common stock. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for you and other stockholders to elect directors of your choosing and to cause us to take other corporate actions you desire.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware or the federal district courts of the United States of America, as applicable, as the sole and exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with the Company or the Company’s directors, officers or other employees.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the sole and exclusive forum for: (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; (ii) any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty owed by any current or former director, officer, stockholder or employee of the Company to the Company or our stockholders; (iii) any action asserting a claim against us arising under the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), our certificate of incorporation or our bylaws or as to which the DGCL confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware; or (iv) any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation further provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the federal securities laws of the United States, including, in each case, the applicable rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.

Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in any shares of our capital stock shall be deemed to have notice of and to have consented to the forum provision in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. This choice-of-forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a different judicial forum, including one that it may find favorable or convenient for a specified class of disputes with the Company or the Company’s directors, officers, other stockholders or employees, which may discourage such lawsuits. Alternatively, if a court were to find this provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation inapplicable or unenforceable with respect to one or more of the specified types of actions or proceedings, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such matters in other jurisdictions, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and result in a diversion of the time and resources of our management and Board of Directors.

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General Risk Factors

We have a limited operating history as a public company and, as a result, our past results may not be indicative of future operating performance.

We have a limited operating history as a public company, which makes it difficult to forecast our future results. You should not rely on our past quarterly operating results as indicators of future performance. You should take into account and evaluate our prospects in light of the risks and uncertainties frequently encountered by companies in rapidly-evolving markets like ours.

Our quarterly operating results and other operating metrics may fluctuate from quarter to quarter, which makes these metrics difficult to predict.

Our quarterly operating results and other operating metrics have fluctuated in the past and may continue to fluctuate from quarter to quarter, which makes them difficult to predict. Our financial condition and operating results in any given quarter can be influenced by numerous factors, many of which we are unable to predict or are outside of our control, including, for example:

Any one of the factors above or the cumulative effect of some of the factors above may result in significant fluctuations in our results of operations.

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The variability and unpredictability of our quarterly operating results or other operating metrics could result in our failure to meet our expectations or those of analysts that cover us or investors with respect to revenue or other operating results for a particular period. If we fail to meet or exceed such expectations, the market price of our Class A common stock could fall substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.

We are exposed to changes in the global macroeconomic environment beyond our control, which may adversely affect consumer discretionary spending, demand for our products and services, and our expenses.

Our products and services may be considered discretionary items for consumers. Factors affecting the level of consumer spending for such discretionary items include general economic conditions, and other factors, such as consumer confidence in future economic conditions, fears of recession, the lingering economic effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on consumers, the availability and cost of consumer credit, costs of living, levels of unemployment, tax rates, interest rates and inflationary pressure. In recent years, the United States, the United Kingdom and other significant economic markets have experienced cyclical downturns and worldwide economic conditions remain uncertain. As global economic conditions continue to be volatile or economic uncertainty remains, trends in consumer discretionary spending also remain unpredictable and subject to reductions. Unfavorable economic conditions may lead consumers to delay or reduce purchases of our products and consumer demand for our products may not grow as we expect.

Fluctuations in inflation may also negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations by affecting our expenses, including, but not limited to, employee compensation expenses. The United States and other countries in which a large percentage of our employees reside, such as the United Kingdom and Spain, have recently experienced historically high levels of inflation. If the inflation rate continues to increase, our expenses may also continue to increase. Any attempts to offset cost increases with price increases may result in a decrease in the number of paying users, increased user dissatisfaction or otherwise harm our reputation. Our sensitivity to economic cycles and any related fluctuation in consumer demand for our products and services could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations could materially adversely affect our results of operations.

We operate in various international markets. During the year ended December 31, 2022, 42.9% of our total revenues were international revenues. We translate international revenues into U.S. dollar-denominated operating results and during periods of a strengthening U.S. dollar, our international revenues will be reduced when translated into U.S. dollars. In addition, as foreign currency exchange rates fluctuate, the translation of our international revenues into U.S. dollar-denominated operating results affects the period-over-period comparability of such results and can result in foreign currency exchange gains and losses. Furthermore, a portion of our costs and expenses have been, and we anticipate will continue to be, denominated in foreign currencies, including the British pound (“GBP”) and Euro. If the value of the U.S. dollar depreciates significantly against these currencies and our revenues translated into U.S. dollars stay the same or decrease, our costs as measured in U.S. dollars as a percent of our revenues will correspondingly increase and our margins will suffer. We have exposure to foreign currency exchange risk related to transactions carried out in any currency other than the U.S. dollar, and investments in foreign subsidiaries with a functional currency other than the U.S. dollar. See “Item 7A―Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk—Foreign Currency Exchange Risk.”

Brexit and other geopolitical and macroeconomic events have caused, and may continue to cause, volatility in currency exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and the GBP. To the extent that the U.S. dollar strengthens relative to the GBP, the translation of our international revenues into U.S. dollars will reduce our U.S. dollar denominated operating results and will affect their period-over-period comparability. Other geopolitical or macroeconomic events may also cause volatility in currency exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and other currencies, such as the Euro. More recently, the significant devaluation of the Russian Ruble due to sanctions by the U.S. and other countries has impacted our revenues from the region and our operating costs in the region.

Significant foreign exchange rate fluctuations, in the case of one currency or collectively with other currencies, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business and results of operations may be materially adversely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak or other similar outbreaks.

Our business could be materially adversely affected by the outbreak of a widespread health epidemic or pandemic, including the outbreak of the COVID-19. The COVID-19 outbreak reached across the globe, resulting in the implementation of governmental measures, as well as changes in consumer behavior as some individuals have become reluctant to engage in social activities with people outside their households. The potential for some of these measures to be reinstituted in the event of repeat waves or the emergence of new variants of the virus is likely to continue to have an adverse impact on global economic conditions and consumer confidence and spending, and could materially adversely affect demand, or users’ ability to pay, for our products and services, particularly in the geographic and demographic markets in which Badoo app operates.

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A widespread health epidemic or pandemic poses the risk that Bumble or its employees, contractors, vendors, and other business partners may be prevented or impaired from conducting ordinary course business activities for an indefinite period of time, and/or in a productive way, including due to shutdowns necessitated for the health and wellbeing of employees, or a shift to a remote working environment. A widespread epidemic, pandemic or other health crisis could also cause significant volatility in global markets, reduce our ability to access capital and thereby negatively impact our liquidity, and disrupt labor markets and global supply chains, and these effects may have lingering macroeconomic impacts, which has been the case for COVID-19.

The full extent of the impact of COVID-19 on our business and financial results will depend largely on future developments, including, without limitation, the resurgence of infections, the emergence of new variants, the development, availability, and distribution of new vaccines and treatments and the uptake and effectiveness of existing vaccines and treatments, guidance regarding and the imposition of protective public safety measures, companies’ remote work policies, the impact on capital and financial markets and global supply chains, and the related impact on the circumstances and behavior of our users (including their discretionary spending or their return to pre-COVID routines), all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. Additionally, any widespread health epidemic or pandemic could increase the magnitude of many of the other risks described in this Annual Report, and may have other material adverse effects on our operations that we are not currently able to predict. If our business and the markets in which we operate experience a prolonged occurrence of adverse public health conditions, such as COVID-19, it could materially adversely affect our ability to execute strategic plans, and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they downgrade their recommendations regarding our Class A common stock, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our Class A common stock is and will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. If any of the analysts who cover us downgrade our Class A common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our Class A common stock price may decline. If analysts cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our Class A common stock price or trading volume to decline and our Class A common stock to be less liquid.

The market price of shares of our Class A common stock may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance, which could cause the value of your investment to decline.

The market price of our Class A common stock may be highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations. Securities markets worldwide experience significant price and volume fluctuations. This market volatility, as well as general economic, market or political conditions, could reduce the market price of shares of our Class A common stock regardless of our operating performance. In addition, our operating results could be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors due to a number of potential factors, including variations in our quarterly operating results or dividends, if any, to stockholders, additions or departures of key management personnel, failure to meet analysts’ earnings estimates, publication of research reports about our industry, litigation and government investigations, changes or proposed changes in laws or regulations or differing interpretations or enforcement thereof affecting our business, adverse market reaction to any indebtedness we may incur or securities we may issue in the future, changes in market valuations of similar companies or speculation in the press or investment community, announcements by our competitors of significant contracts, acquisitions, dispositions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments, adverse publicity about the industries we participate in or individual scandals, and in response the market price of shares of our Class A common stock could decrease significantly.

Stock markets and the price of our Class A shares may experience extreme price and volume fluctuations. In the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. Such litigation, if and when instituted against us, may result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

We may experience operational and financial risks in connection with acquisitions.

We have made and may continue to seek potential acquisition candidates to add complementary companies, products or technologies. The identification of suitable acquisition candidates can be difficult, time-consuming and costly, and we may not be able to successfully complete identified acquisitions. We may experience operational and financial risks in connection with historical and future acquisitions if we are unable to:

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Furthermore, we may not be successful in addressing other challenges encountered in connection with our acquisitions. The anticipated benefits of one or more of our acquisitions may not be realized or the value of goodwill and other intangible assets acquired could be impacted by one or more continuing unfavorable events or trends, which has resulted in Badoo brand impairment, and could result in further significant impairment charges. Any acquisitions or other strategic transactions we announce could be viewed negatively by users, marketers, developers, or investors, which may adversely affect our business or the price of our Class A common stock. The occurrence of any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Additionally, the integration of acquisitions requires significant time and resources, and we may not manage these processes successfully. Our ability to successfully integrate complex acquisitions is unproven, particularly with respect to companies that have significant operations or that develop products with which we do not have prior experience. We may make substantial investments of resources to support our acquisitions, which would result in significant ongoing operating expenses and may divert resources and management attention from other areas of our business. We cannot assure you that these investments will be successful. If we fail to successfully integrate the companies we acquire, we may not realize the benefits expected from the transactions and our business may be harmed.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2. Properties

Our corporate headquarters is located in leased office space in Austin, Texas and consists of approximately 7,500 square feet. In addition, we lease properties located outside of the United States, including office space in London, Barcelona and Paris and work space in Mexico City, Mumbai, and Sydney.

We also lease a number of operations, data centers and other facilities in several states and in international locations. Our material data centers include those in Miami, Prague, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. We believe that our facilities are generally adequate for our current anticipated and future use, although we may from time to time lease additional facilities or vacate existing facilities as our operations require.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

We are subject to various legal proceedings, claims, and governmental inspections, audits or investigations arising out of our business which cover matters such as general commercial, consumer protection, governmental regulations, product liability, privacy, safety, environmental, intellectual property, employment and other actions that are incidental to our business, including a number of trademark proceedings, both offensive and defensive, regarding the BUMBLE, BADOO and FRUITZ marks. Although the outcomes of these claims cannot be predicted with certainty, in the opinion of management, the ultimate resolution of these matters will not have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.

In late 2021 and early 2022, four putative class action lawsuits were filed against the Company in Illinois alleging that certain features of the Badoo or Bumble apps violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). These lawsuits allege that the apps used facial geometry scans in violation of BIPA’s authorization, consent, and data retention policy provisions. Plaintiffs in these lawsuits seek statutory damages, compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees, injunctive relief, and (in one action) punitive damages. These cases are still in early stages and at this time the Company cannot reasonably estimate a range of potential liability, if any, which may arise therefrom.

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In January 2022, a purported class action complaint, UA Local 13 Pension Fund v. Bumble Inc. et al., was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York naming, among others, the Company, our Chief Executive Officer, our Chief Financial Officer, our Board of Directors and Blackstone, as defendants. The complaint asserts claims under the U.S. federal securities laws, purportedly brought on behalf of a class of purchasers of shares of Class A common stock in Bumble’s secondary public stock offering which took place in September 2021 (the “SPO”), that the SPO Registration Statement and prospectus contained false and misleading statements or omissions by failing to disclose certain information concerning Bumble and Badoo app paying users and related trends and issues with the Badoo app payment platform, and that as a result of the foregoing, Bumble’s business metrics and financial prospects were not as strong as represented in the SPO Registration Statement and prospectus. The complaint seeks unspecified damages and an award of costs and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, as well as equitable relief. The Company believes that the allegations contained in the complaint are without merit and intends to defend the complaint vigorously.

Five shareholder derivative complaints have been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, United States District Court for the District of Delaware and Delaware Court of Chancery against the Company and certain directors and officers. The Glover-Mott shareholder derivative complaint, filed in April 2022, alleges a breach of fiduciary duty against management and our Board of Directors based on the same allegations and events described in the class action complaint. The complaint seeks unspecified damages, an award of costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, and that the Company be directed to take action to reform its corporate governance and internal procedures. The William B. Federman Irrevocable Trust shareholder derivative complaint, filed in May 2022, alleges violations of Section 14(a) of the Exchange Act, breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of duty and gross mismanagement based on misstatements or omissions in the Company’s April 2022 Proxy Statement concerning alleged deficiencies in the Company’s risk management and internal controls which allegedly led to disclosure deficiencies in the SPO documents. The complaint seeks a declaration that the individual defendants breached their fiduciary duties, aided and abetted breach of fiduciary duty, were unjustly enriched, grossly mismanaged the Company and violated the federal securities laws; an order that the individual defendants are jointly and severally liable for all damages; an order requiring the individual defendants to remit their salaries and compensation to the Company for the period of breach; unspecified equitable and injunctive relief; and costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorneys’, consultants’ and experts’ fees. The Dana Messana shareholder derivative complaint, filed in September 2022, alleges violation of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, breach of fiduciary duty against management and the Board, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, and waste of corporate assets based on the same allegations and events described in the SPO class action complaint. The complaint seeks unspecified damages; an order that the individual defendants are jointly and severally liable for all damages; an order for imposition of a constructive trust on any profits and unjust enrichments received by the individual defendants through unlawful conduct; and an award of costs and disbursements, including reasonable attorneys’, accountants’, and experts’ fees. The Sanchez shareholder derivative complaint, filed in January 2023, asserts claims for breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against, among others, management, our Board of Directors, and Blackstone based on the same allegations and events described in the class action complaint. The complaint seeks unspecified damages; an order that the defendants are jointly and severally liable for all damages; disgorgement from defendants of any profits, benefits, and other unjust gains from misconduct; and an award of costs and disbursements, including attorneys’ fees, accountants’ fees, and experts’ fees. The City of Vero Beach Police Officers’ Retirement Trust Fund derivative complaint, filed in February 2023, asserts claims for breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against, among others, management, our Board of Directors, and Blackstone based on the same allegations and events described in the class action complaint. The complaint seeks unspecified damages; a finding that the individual defendants breached their fiduciary duties; disgorgement from defendants of any unjustly obtained profits or benefits; and an award of costs and disbursement, including attorneys’ fees, accountants’ fees, and experts’ fees. The Company has also received an inquiry from the SEC relating to the disclosures at issue in the SPO class action complaint. The Company cannot predict at this point the length of time that these matters will be ongoing, their outcome or the liability, if any, which may arise therefrom.

As of December 31, 2022, management has assessed that provisions of $20.5 million are our best estimate of any probable future obligation, including legal costs incurred to date and expected to be incurred up to completion, for the ongoing litigations. This provision includes amounts accrued with respect to the Company’s class action lawsuit related to the SPO, representing management’s current estimated probable loss for this matter following a court-ordered mediation between the parties to the litigation.

For additional information, refer to Note 20, Commitments and Contingencies, within the audited consolidated financial statements included in “Item 8―Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” in this Annual Report.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

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Item 4A. Information About Our Executive Officers

The following table sets forth information regarding our executive officers as of the date of this Annual Report:

Whitney Wolfe Herd is the founder of Bumble app and has served as our Chief Executive Officer and as a member of our Board of Directors since January 2020. Prior to founding Bumble app in 2014, Ms. Wolfe Herd was a co-founder of Tinder, a dating application, where she served as Vice President of Marketing from May 2012 to April 2014. Currently, Ms. Wolfe Herd serves on the board of directors of Imagine Entertainment as well as the Executive Board at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, where she graduated with a B.A. in International Studies.

Tariq M. Shaukat has served as our President since July 2020. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Shaukat served as President of Google Cloud at Google LLC from June 2016 to July 2020. Prior to that, Mr. Shaukat served in various roles for Caesars Entertainment, including as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer from October 2014 to May 2016 and Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer from March 2012 to October 2014. Prior to joining Caesars Entertainment, Mr. Shaukat was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, and worked in a variety of roles in the technology industry. Since July 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Public Storage. He also serves on the board of directors of Ellipsis Health. Mr. Shaukat holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Anuradha B. Subramanian has served as our Chief Financial Officer since September 2020. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Subramanian served as Chief Financial Officer, Digital at Univision Communications Inc. from February 2018 to September 2020. Prior to that, Ms. Subramanian served as Chief Financial Officer, Digital at VICE Media during 2017. Prior to that, Ms. Subramanian served in various roles at Scripps Networks Interactive from August 2010 to January 2017, including most recently as the Head of Finance, Digital. Prior to Scripps Networks, Ms. Subramanian worked in investment banking at Citi as part of the Media and Telecom group. Ms. Subramanian began her career at Ernst & Young in the assurance division. Ms. Subramanian holds an M.B.A from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) from Delhi University and is a Chartered Accountant in India.

Laura Franco has served as our Chief Legal and Compliance Officer since November 2020. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Franco served most recently as Executive Vice President, General Counsel of the CBS business of ViacomCBS since December 2019 and before that, Ms. Franco was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of CBS Corporation from March 2019 to December 2019. Prior to that, Ms. Franco had various senior legal positions at Viacom Inc. and CBS Corporation. Prior to joining Viacom Inc. in 1995, Ms. Franco began her career at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP where she practiced mergers and acquisitions and securities law. Currently, Ms. Franco serves on the board of directors of Virgin Voyages. Ms. Franco holds a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Market Information

Our Class A common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "BMBL" on February 11, 2021. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our Class A common stock.

There is no established public trading market for our Class B common stock.

Holders of Record

As of January 31, 2023, there were 67 registered holders of our Class A common stock and 20 registered holders of our Class B common stock. Because many of our shares of Class A common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders represented by these record holders.

Dividend Policy

The declaration, amount and payment of any future dividends on shares of our capital stock will be at the sole discretion of our Board of Directors and we may reduce or discontinue entirely the payment of such dividends at any time. Our Board of Directors may take into account general and economic conditions, our financial condition and operating results, our available cash and current and anticipated cash needs, capital requirements, contractual, legal, tax and regulatory restrictions and implications on the payment of dividends by us to our stockholders or by our subsidiaries to us, and such other factors as our Board of Directors may deem relevant.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

None.

Performance Graph

The following performance graph shall not be deemed soliciting material or to be filed with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any of our other filings under the Exchange Act or the Securities Act.

The graph below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our Class A common stock with the cumulative total return on the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Nasdaq CTA Internet Index. The graph assumes an initial investment of $100 in our common stock at the market close on February 11, 2021, which was our initial trading day. Data for the Nasdaq Composite Index and the Nasdaq CTA Internet Index assume reinvestment of dividends.

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The comparisons in the graph below are based upon historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, future performance of our Class A common stock.

Item 6. Reserved

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

You should read the following discussion and analysis of the financial condition and results of operations of Bumble Inc. (the “Successor”) and Worldwide Vision Limited (the “Predecessor”), in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in Part II, “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties about our business and operations. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include without limitation those discussed in this Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and those identified in Part I, “Item 1A—Risk Factors."

Overview

We provide online dating and social networking applications through subscription and in-app purchases of dating products servicing North America, Europe and various other countries around the world. In 2022, Bumble operated three apps, Bumble, Badoo and Fruitz and we are a leader in the online dating space. We launched Bumble app in 2014 to address antiquated gender norms and a lack of kindness and accountability on the internet. We believe that healthy and equitable relationships begin with Kind Connections and focus on building authenticity and safety in the online space, which is marked at times by isolation and toxicity. We also believe there is a significant opportunity to extend our platform beyond online dating into healthy relationships across all areas of life: love, friendships, careers and beyond. By empowering women across all of their relationships, we believe that we have the potential to become a preeminent global women’s brand. By placing women at the center – where women make the first move – we are building a platform that is designed to be safe and empowering for women, and in turn, provide a better environment for everyone. Badoo app, launched in 2006, was one of the pioneers of web and mobile free-to-use dating products.

In January 2022, we acquired Fruitz, a fast-growing dating app with a Gen Z focus, which is a growing segment of online dating consumers. Fruitz encourages open and honest communication of dating intentions through playful fruit metaphors.

How We Generate Revenue

We monetize the Bumble app, Badoo app and Fruitz app via a freemium model where the use of our service is free and a subset of our users pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases to access premium features. These features maximize the probability of developing meaningful connections, improving their experience and saving them valuable time.

On Bumble app, our subscription offerings are called Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium. These subscription plan offerings currently include 1-day, 7-day, 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, or lifetime packages. Bumble users, both subscribers and non-subscribing users, can also access additional features through in-app purchases. On Badoo app, our subscription offerings are called Badoo Premium and Badoo Premium Plus. Badoo premium subscription plan offerings currently include 1-day, 7-day, 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, or lifetime packages. In addition, Badoo users, both subscribers and non-subscribing users, can also purchase Badoo Credits which they can use to acquire in-app features such as one-off popularity boosts. We also selectively monetize through video and banner advertising. On Fruitz app, our subscription offerings are called Fruitz Premium and Fruitz Golden. Similar to the Bumble and Badoo apps, Fruitz offers flexible subscription packages and in-app purchases.

Overview of Financial Results

For the year ended December 31, 2022, the year ended December 31, 2021, the period from January 29 through December 31, 2020 and the period from January 1 through January 28, 2020, we generated:

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For a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin, Free Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow Conversion, which are all non-GAAP measures, to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, information about why we consider Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow and free cash flow conversion useful and a discussion of the material risks and limitations of these measures, please see “—Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

Key Operating Metrics

We regularly review a number of metrics, including the following key operating metrics, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends in our business, prepare financial projections and make strategic decisions. We believe these operational measures are useful in evaluating our performance, in addition to our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Refer to the section “Certain Definitions” at the beginning of this Annual Report for the definitions of our Key Operating Metrics.

The following metrics were calculated excluding paying users and revenue generated from Fruitz:

Key Factors Affecting our Performance

Our results of operations and financial condition have been, and will continue to be, affected by a number of factors that present significant opportunities for us but also pose risks and challenges, including those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly in Part I, “Item 1A—Risk Factors.”

Growth in Monetization

Our apps monetize via a freemium model where the use of our service is free and a subset of our users pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases to access premium features. We acquire new users through investments in marketing and brand as well as through word of mouth from existing users and others. We convert these users to Paying Users by introducing premium features which maximize the probability of developing meaningful connections and improving their experience.

Our revenue growth primarily depends on Paying Users and ARPPU. We continually develop new monetization features and improve existing features in order to increase adoption of in-app purchases and our subscription programs striking a balance between the number of Paying Users and ARPPU. We also test new pricing strategies, including different pricing tiers and user segmentation and share those insights across our apps to optimize monetization.

While we see opportunity for growth in our core online dating market driven by the steady growth of the global singles population, increasing adoption of online dating both in the United States and globally and increasing propensity to pay for online dating, we may also face challenges increasing our Paying Users. These challenges may include the prevailing global economic climate, competition from alternative products, lack of appealing product features, enforcement of restrictive payment policies from in-app payment systems provided by Apple and Google, and saturation of the online dating market. For example, Google has implemented a policy whereby only Google Play’s in-app billing system can be used for transactions in its store. We have increased compliance with this policy across our markets, which has had and may continue to have a negative impact on our revenue, earnings margins and numbers of Paying Users, especially in markets that tend to have lower value subscriptions and higher concentrations of Android users.

Many variables will impact our ARPPU, including the number of Paying Users and mix of monetization offerings on our platform, as well as the effect of demographic shifts and geographic differences on all of these variables. Our pricing is in local currency and may vary between markets. As foreign currency exchange rates change, translation of the statements of operations into U.S. dollars could negatively impact revenue and distort year-over-year comparability of operating results.

To the extent our ARPPU growth slows, our revenue growth will become increasingly dependent on our ability to increase our Paying Users.

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Expansion into New Geographic Markets

We are focused on growing our platform globally, including through entering new markets and investing in under-penetrated markets. As we introduce Bumble app to new markets throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America we can leverage the local insights, scale, and infrastructure of Badoo app’s existing global footprint to efficiently enter new markets. Badoo app can also leverage Bumble’s marketing expertise and strength in North America to support growth in that market.

Expanding into new geographies will require increased costs related to marketing, as well as localization of product features and services. Potential risks to our expansion into new geographies will include competition and compliance with foreign laws and regulations.

As we expand into certain new geographies, we may see an increase in users who prefer to access premium features through our in-app purchase options rather than through our subscription packages which could impact our ARPPU. We may also see a lower propensity to pay as we enter certain new markets.

Investing in Growth While Driving Long-Term Profitability

Our mission-driven strategy ensures that values guide our business decisions and our business performance enables us to drive impact through investment in technology, marketing and product innovation, balancing growth with long-term margins.

We expect to continue to invest in technology, marketing and product innovation to drive growth while improving margins over the long term. Key investment areas for our platform include machine learning capabilities, including improving our matching and content moderation technologies; features that enhance trust and safety on our platform; new offerings that enhance user engagement and retention; marketing, data analytics, and personalization capabilities; and new subscription and consumable offerings to drive incremental value to Paying Users.

Attracting and Retaining Talent

Our business relies on our ability to attract and retain our talent, including engineers, data scientists, product designers and product developers. We believe that people want to work at a company that has purpose and aligns with their personal values, and therefore our ability to recruit talent is aided by our mission and brand reputation. We compete for talent within the technology industry.

Seasonality

We experience seasonality in user growth, user engagement, Paying User growth, and monetization on our platform. Historically, we have seen an increase in all of these metrics in January due in part to seasonal demand in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, and during the Northern Hemisphere summer. Generally, our highest performing months for user growth and user engagement are during the first and third quarters of the fiscal year, and our highest performing months for Total Paying Users are in the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year.

Macroeconomic Conditions

The prevailing global economic climate, Russia-Ukraine conflict and other macroeconomic conditions, including but not limited to slower growth or economic recession, changes to fiscal and monetary policy and exchange rate fluctuations have adversely affected and may continue to adversely impact our business as consumers face greater pressure on disposable income. The increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve and overall market conditions have led to significant strengthening of the U.S. dollar against other global currencies in 2022. A strong U.S. dollar has impacted and may continue to impact our revenue and earnings in 2023. We continuously monitor the direct and indirect impacts of these circumstances on our business and financial results.
 

For additional information, see “Item 1A―Risk Factors—General Risk Factors—We are exposed to changes in the global macroeconomic environment beyond our control, which may adversely affect consumer discretionary spending, demand for our products and services, and our expenses.”

Impact of COVID-19

Since early 2020, COVID-19 has impacted market and economic conditions globally, resulting in the implementation of significant governmental measures, including lockdowns, closures, quarantines, and travel bans intended to control the spread of the virus, as well as changes in consumer behavior as some individuals have become reluctant to engage in social activities with people outside their households. The potential for some of these measures to be reinstituted in the event of repeat waves or the emergence of new variants of the virus is likely to continue to have an adverse impact on global economic conditions and consumer confidence and spending in many parts of the world. Such macroeconomic conditions have adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect

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demand, and/or users’ ability to pay, for our products and services, particularly in the geographic and demographic markets in which Badoo app operates. Given the continued uncertainty around the duration and severity of the impact on market conditions and the business environment, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, financial condition and results of operations going forward remains uncertain for the foreseeable future.

For additional information, see “Item 1A―Risk Factors—General Risk Factors—Our business and results of operations may be materially adversely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak or other similar outbreaks” and “Item 1A―Risk Factors—General Risk Factors—We are exposed to changes in the global macroeconomic environment beyond our control, which may adversely affect consumer discretionary spending, demand for our products and services, and our expenses.”
 

Impact of Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Historically, we have had business operations in Russia. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, we leased office space in Moscow and had approximately 125 employees based out of the Moscow office, consisting primarily of engineers responsible for services including anti-spam, integrity, incident management and product development and services related to supportive IT infrastructure.

On March 8, 2022, we announced the discontinuation of our operations in Russia and the removal of all of our apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus. We closed our Moscow office and shifted our resources based in Moscow, where feasible, to other geographic locations.

For the year ended December 31, 2022, the net assets of our subsidiary in Russia comprised 0.2% of total assets and revenue from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine combined were approximately 0.8% of our total revenue. Operating costs related to our Russian operations were approximately 1.0% of our total operating costs for the year ended December 31, 2022.

For additional information, see “Item 1A―Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Brand, Products and Operations―Our operations may be adversely affected by ongoing developments in Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries, including due to the impact of our decision to discontinue our operations in Russia and remove our apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus.”

Factors Affecting the Comparability of Our Results of Operations

As a result of a number of factors, our historical results of operations may not be comparable from period to period or going forward. Set forth below is a brief discussion of the key factors impacting the comparability of our results of operations.

The Sponsor Acquisition

On January 29, 2020, we completed the Sponsor Acquisition, pursuant to which, among other things, Bumble Holdings acquired Worldwide Vision Limited and its consolidated subsidiaries. For additional information, see Note 1, Organization and Basis of Preparation, within the audited consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The Sponsor Acquisition was accounted for as a business combination under Accounting Standards Codification 805, Business Combinations. The purchase consideration was allocated to the identifiable assets and liabilities of Worldwide Vision Limited measured at their fair value as of the effective date of the Sponsor Acquisition. Any excess of the purchase consideration over the fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of Worldwide Vision Limited was recognized as goodwill in our consolidated financial statements. In addition, we have recorded an increase in depreciation and amortization.

In connection with the Sponsor Acquisition, in January 2020, we entered into a 7-year senior secured term loan facility in an original aggregate principal amount of $575.0 million (the “Initial Term Loan Facility”) and a 5-year senior secured revolving credit facility in an aggregate principal amount of up to $50.0 million (the “Revolving Credit Facility”). The borrower under the Initial Term Loan Facility and the Revolving Credit Facility is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bumble Holdings, Buzz Finco L.L.C. Accordingly, in periods after the Sponsor Acquisition, we have recorded an increase in interest expense.

Concurrent with the Sponsor Acquisition, the Company also decided to no longer actively maintain and market certain platforms, including Chappy, Lumen and Huggle (“Inactive Platforms”). The decision to do so was based on the Company’s greater focus on, and decision to use its resources for strengthening, its brands Bumble and Badoo. During the periods from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020, the revenue associated with the Inactive Platforms is deemed immaterial.

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As a result of the Sponsor Acquisition, the Company incurred significant transaction costs such as legal, accounting, consulting, shadow equity and other expenses. These were incurred both in the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020 and the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and resulted primarily in an increase in general and administrative expense.

The Distribution Financing Transaction

In October 2020, we entered into an incremental senior secured term loan facility (the “Incremental Term Loan Facility” and, together with the Initial Term Loan Facility, the “Term Loan Facility” the Term Loan Facility, together with the Revolving Credit Facility, the “Senior Secured Credit Facilities”) with the same maturity as the Initial Term Loan Facility in an original aggregate principal amount of $275.0 million. The Incremental Term Loan provides for additional senior secured term loans with substantially identical terms as the Initial Term Loan Facility (other than the applicable margin). The borrower under the Incremental Term Loan Facility is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bumble Holdings, Buzz Finco L.L.C.

Bumble Holdings used the proceeds from the incremental borrowings under the Incremental Term Loan Facility, together with available cash, to declare a distribution of $360.0 million, of which approximately $334.3 million was paid to our pre-IPO owners on October 28, 2020 and $25.6 million was used to partially repay the loan to our Founder, and to pay related fees and expenses in connection therewith.

Initial Public Offering and Offering Transactions

On February 10, 2021, our registration statement on Form S-1 relating to our initial public offering (“IPO”) was declared effective by the SEC, and our Class A common stock began trading on the NASDAQ on February 11, 2021. Our IPO closed on February 16, 2021. For additional information, see Note 1, Organization and Basis of Preparation, to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, "Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Bumble Inc. issued and sold 57.5 million shares of its Class A common stock in the IPO, including 7.5 million shares sold pursuant to the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase additional shares. Bumble Inc. used the proceeds (net of underwriting discounts) from the issuance of 9 million shares ($369.6 million) to acquire an equivalent number of newly-issued Common Units from Bumble Holdings, which Bumble Holdings used to repay outstanding indebtedness under our Term Loan Facility totaling approximately $200.0 million in aggregate principal amount and approximately $148.3 million for general corporate purposes, and to bear all of the expenses of the IPO. Bumble Inc. used the proceeds (net of underwriting discounts) from the issuance of 48.5 million shares ($1,991.6 million) to purchase or redeem an equivalent aggregate number of shares of Class A common stock and Common Units from our pre-IPO owners. We refer to the foregoing transactions as the “Offering Transactions”.

Secondary Offering

On September 15, 2021, the Company completed a secondary offering of 20.7 million shares of Class A common stock on behalf of certain selling stockholders affiliated with Blackstone Inc. (the "Selling Stockholders") at a price of $54.00 per share. This transaction resulted in the issuance of 9.2 million Class A shares for the period ending September 30, 2021.

Bumble did not sell any shares of Class A common stock in the offering and did not receive any of the proceeds from the sale. Bumble paid the costs associated with the sale of shares by the Selling Stockholders, net of the underwriting discounts.

Reorganization Transactions

Prior to the completion of the IPO, we undertook certain reorganization transactions (the “Reorganization Transactions”) such that Bumble Inc. is now a holding company, and its sole material asset is a controlling equity interest in Bumble Holdings. As the general partner of Bumble Holdings, Bumble Inc. now operates and controls all of the business and affairs of Bumble Holdings, has the obligation to absorb losses and receive benefits from Bumble Holdings and, through Bumble Holdings and its subsidiaries, conducts our business. The Reorganization Transactions were accounted for as a reorganization of entities under common control. As a result, the consolidated financial statements of Bumble Inc. will recognize the assets and liabilities received in the Reorganization Transactions at their historical carrying amounts, as reflected in the historical financial statements of Bumble Holdings, the accounting predecessor. Bumble Inc. will consolidate Bumble Holdings on its consolidated financial statements and record a non-controlling interest, related to the Common Units and the Incentive Units held by our pre-IPO owners, on its consolidated balance sheet and statement of operations.

Bumble Inc. is a corporation for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. Bumble Inc.’s accounting predecessor, Bumble Holdings, is and has been since the Sponsor Acquisition, treated as a flow-through entity for U.S. federal income tax purposes, and as such, has generally not been subject to U.S. federal income tax at the entity level. Accordingly, the historical results of operations and other financial information set forth in this Annual Report do not include any material provisions for U.S. federal income tax for the period prior to our IPO. Following our IPO, Bumble Inc. pays U.S. federal and state income taxes as a corporation on its share of Bumble Holdings’ taxable income.

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In addition, in connection with the Reorganization Transactions and our IPO, we entered into the tax receivable agreement as described under “Tax Receivable Agreement”.

Public Company Costs

In preparation for our IPO, we incurred significant one-off costs such as legal, accounting, consulting, investor relations and other expenses. Accordingly, in the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020, we have recorded an increase in general and administrative expense.

As a result of becoming a public company, we continue to incur additional costs such as personnel, legal, regulatory, insurance, accounting, investor relations and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company including as a result of no longer qualifying as an "Emerging Growth Company". See “Item 1A―Risk Factors―Risks Related to Ownership of our Class A Common

Stock―We incur increased costs and are subject to additional regulations and requirements as a result of becoming a public company,

which could lower our profits, make it more difficult to run our business or divert management’s attention from our business.”

Tax Receivable Agreement

In connection with the Reorganization Transactions and our IPO, we entered into a tax receivable agreement with certain of our pre-IPO owners that provides for the payment by the Company to such pre-IPO owners of 85% of the benefits that the Company realizes, or is deemed to realize, as a result of the Company’s allocable share of existing tax basis acquired in our IPO, increases in our share of existing tax basis and adjustments to the tax basis of the assets of Bumble Holdings as a result of sales or exchanges of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units), and our utilization of certain tax attributes of the Blocker Companies (including the Blocker Companies’ allocable share of existing tax basis) and certain other tax benefits related to entering into the tax receivable agreement.

For additional information, see “Item 1A―Risk Factors—Bumble Inc. will be required to pay certain of our pre-IPO owners for most of the benefits relating to tax depreciation or amortization deductions that we may claim as a result of Bumble Inc.’s allocable share of existing tax basis acquired in the IPO, Bumble Inc.’s increase in its allocable share of existing tax basis and anticipated tax basis adjustments we receive in connection with sales or exchanges of Common Units (including Common Units issued upon conversion of vested Incentive Units) in connection with or after the IPO and our utilization of certain tax attributes of the Blocker Companies.” and “Item 1A―Risk Factors—In certain cases, payments under the tax receivable agreement may be accelerated and/or significantly exceed the actual benefits Bumble Inc. realizes in respect of the tax attributes subject to the tax receivable agreement.”

For additional information, see Note 6, Payable to Related Parties Pursuant to a Tax Receivable Agreement, to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, “Item 8 – Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We have determined that it is more likely than not that we will be unable to realize certain tax benefits that were received in connection with the Reorganization Transactions and our IPO. As a result of this determination, we have not recorded the benefit of these deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2022. The Company is entitled to certain depreciation and amortization deductions as a result of its allocable share of existing tax basis acquired in the IPO and increases in its allocable share of existing basis and adjustments to the tax basis of the assets of Bumble Holdings as a result of sales or exchanges in connection with the IPO. There is significant existing tax basis in the assets of Bumble Holdings as a result of the Sponsor Acquisition. Based on current projections, we anticipate having sufficient taxable income to be able to realize these tax benefits and have recorded a liability of $394.3 million associated with the tax receivable agreement related to these benefits of which $8.8 million is included in "Other current liabilities." The ability of the deferred tax assets to be realized is evaluated based on all positive and negative evidence, including future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income, tax planning strategies and recent results of operations. We will assess the ability of the deferred tax assets to be realized at each reporting period, and a change in our estimate of our liability associated with the tax receivable agreement may result as additional information becomes available, including results of operations in future periods.

Employee Equity Plans

In connection with the Reorganization Transactions and our IPO, we undertook a number of modifications to existing employee equity plans such that awards under the Founder Plan, U.S. Plan, and Non-U.S. Plan were reclassified as follows:

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In all cases of respective reclassifications, the Post-IPO awards retained the same terms and conditions (including applicable vesting requirements). Each Post-IPO award was converted to reflect the $43.00 share price contemplated in the Company’s IPO while retaining the same economic value in the Company.

In connection with the IPO, we adopted the 2021 Omnibus Incentive Plan (the "2021 Omnibus Plan"), which became effective on the date immediately prior to the effective date of the IPO. Under the 2021 Omnibus Plan, we granted equity awards as follows:

At the IPO date, we concluded that our public offering represented a qualifying liquidity event that would cause the Exit-Vesting awards’ performance conditions to be probable. As such, we started to recognize stock-based compensation expense for the Exit-Vesting awards. On July 15, 2022, the Exit-Vesting awards, with vesting based on certain performance conditions, were modified to also provide for time-based vesting in 36 equal installments and we began to recognize incremental stock-based compensation associated with the modification of these awards. During the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, we recognized compensation cost related to Exit-Vesting awards of $31.3 million and $26.3 million, which includes the modification of these awards in fiscal year 2022.

For additional information, see Note 16, Stock-based Compensation, to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, “Item 8 – Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Components of Results of Operations

Our business is organized into a single reportable segment.

Revenue

We monetize the Bumble, Badoo and Fruitz apps via a freemium model where the use of our service is free and a subset of our users pay for subscriptions or in-app purchases to access premium features. Subscription revenue is presented net of taxes, refunds and credit card chargebacks. This revenue is initially deferred and is recognized using the straight-line method over the term of the applicable subscription period. Revenue from lifetime subscriptions is deferred over the average estimated expected period of the subscriber relationship, which is currently estimated to be twelve months. Revenue from the purchase of in-app features is recognized based on usage.

We also earn revenue from online advertising and partnerships, which are not a significant part of our business. Online advertising revenue is recognized when an advertisement is displayed. Revenue from partnerships is recognized according to the contractual terms of the partnership.

Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue consists primarily of in-app purchase fees due on payments processed through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Purchases on Android outside of the United States and United Kingdom, mobile web and desktop have additional payment methods, such as credit card or via telecom providers. These purchases incur fees which vary depending on payment method. Purchase fees are deferred and expensed over the same period as revenue.

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Cost of revenue also includes data center expenses such as rent, power and bandwidth for running servers, employee compensation (including stock-based compensation) and, other employee related costs and restructuring charges. Expenses relating to customer care functions such as customer service, moderators and other auxiliary costs associated with providing services to customers such as fraud prevention are also included within cost of revenue.

Selling and marketing expense

Selling and marketing expense consists primarily of brand marketing, digital and social media spend, field marketing, restructuring charges, compensation expense (including stock-based compensation) and other employee-related costs for personnel engaged in sales and marketing functions.

General and administrative expense

General and administrative expense consists primarily of compensation (including stock-based compensation) and other employee-related costs for personnel engaged in executive management, finance, legal, tax and human resources. General and administrative expense also consists of transaction costs, impairment losses, changes in fair value of contingent earn-out liability, expenses associated with facilities, information technology, external professional services, legal costs, settlement of legal claims, restructuring charges and other administrative expenses.

Product development expense

Product development expense consists primarily of compensation (including stock-based compensation) and other employee-related costs for personnel engaged in the design, development, testing and enhancement of product offerings and related technology, as well as restructuring charges.

Depreciation and amortization expense

Depreciation and amortization expense is primarily related to computer equipment, leasehold improvements, furniture and fixtures, developed technology, user base, white label contracts, trademarks and other definite-lived intangible assets.

Interest income (expense)

Interest income (expense) consists of interest income received on related party loans receivables and interest expense incurred in connection with our long-term debt.

Other income (expense), net

Other income (expense), net consists of insurance reimbursement proceeds, impacts from foreign exchange transactions, tax receivable agreement liability remeasurement (benefit) expense, loss on debt extinguishment, fair value changes in derivatives, sub-lease income and investments in equity securities.

Income tax benefit (provision)

Income tax benefit (provision) represents the income tax benefit or expense associated with our operations based on the tax laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate. These foreign jurisdictions have different statutory tax rates than the United States. Our effective tax rates will vary depending on the relative proportion of foreign to domestic income, changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, and changes in tax laws.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our consolidated statement of operations information for the periods presented:

The following table sets forth our consolidated statement of operations information as a percentage of revenue for the periods presented:

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The following table sets forth the stock-based compensation expense included in operating costs and expenses:

The following table sets forth our revenue across apps for the periods presented:

Total revenue was $903.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $760.9 million for the same period in 2021. The increase was primarily driven by growth in Total Paying Users and an increase in Total Average Revenue per Paying User.

Bumble App Revenue was $694.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $528.6 million for the same period in 2021. This increase was primarily driven by a 34% increase in the number of Bumble App Paying Users to 2.0 million, partially offset by a 2% decrease in Bumble App ARPPU to $28.90. The increase in Bumble App Revenue was due to higher re-engagement in core markets and international expansion partially offset by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

Badoo App and Other Revenue was $209.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $232.3 million for the same period in 2021. This decrease was primarily driven by a 15% decrease in the number of Badoo App and Other Paying Users to 1.2 million due to the Company’s decision to remove all of its apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus in March 2022 and the continued impact of COVID and macroeconomic conditions. We expect the impact of macroeconomic conditions to continue to have an adverse impact on Badoo App and Other Paying Users in 2023. The decrease in Badoo App and Other Revenue was also driven by a 1% decrease in Badoo and Other ARPPU to $13.06. In addition, other revenue of $24.3 million for 2022, increased by $11.6 million, or 92% compared to the same period in 2021, primarily due to Fruitz.

Total revenue was $760.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $539.5 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020, and $40.0 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. Total revenue in the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 was impacted by a reduction in deferred revenue of $15.0 million recorded in purchase accounting.

Bumble App Revenue $528.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $335.0 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $23.3 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. The change was primarily driven by a 31% increase in the number of Bumble App Paying Users to 1.5 million and a 12% increase in Bumble App ARPPU to $29.37.

Badoo App and Other Revenue was $232.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $204.6 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $16.7 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. This change was primarily driven by a 2% increase in the number of Badoo App and Other Paying Users to 1.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 and a 4% increase in Badoo and Other ARPPU to $13.13.


 

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Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022 increased to $249.5 million from $205.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 driven primarily by growth in in-app purchase fees due to increasing revenue. As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022 was 27.6%, compared to 27.0% for the same period in 2021 primarily driven by an increase in fees due to the adoption of Google Play billing in many of our markets partially offset by the reduced Google Play service fees for subscriptions which has declined from 30% to 15%.

Cost of revenue was $205.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $143.6 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $10.8 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. This change was primarily driven by growth in in-app purchase fees due to increasing revenue.

Selling and marketing expense

Selling and marketing expense was $249.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $211.7 million the year ended December 31, 2021. This change was primarily due to a $34.0 million increase in digital and brand marketing costs and a $9.5 million increase in personnel-related expenses, partially offset by a $4.9 million decrease in stock-based compensation due to forfeitures.

Selling and marketing expense was $211.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $152.6 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $11.2 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. This change was primarily due to an increase in digital and brand marketing costs. In addition, selling and marketing expense also increased due to stock-based compensation which was $12.9 million in the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $2.1 million in the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $0.1 million in the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020.

General and administrative expense

General and administrative expense was $319.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2022,compared to $265.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. The change was primarily driven by a $119.0 million increase in impairment charges, which includes a $141.0 million Badoo brand impairment, and a $4.4 million Moscow right-of-use asset impairment in 2022, compared to $26.4 million impairment charge in white label contracts in 2021. In addition, a $23.2 million increase in personnel-related expenses, a $7.8 million increase in professional and transaction costs, a $4.6 million increase in insurance expenses, and a $2.5 million increase in other overhead expenses also contributed to the increase. These increases were partially offset by a decline of $103.1 million in the fair value of the contingent earn-out liabilities.

General and administrative expense was $265.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $181.8 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $44.9 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. The change was

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primarily due to transaction and other costs of $19.1 million, $66.3 million and $40.3 million in the year ended December 31, 2021, the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020, respectively, and impairment losses on the white label contracts of $26.4 million in the year ended December 31, 2021. In addition, the Company recorded an expense in relation to the change in the fair value of the contingent earn-out liability which was $55.9 million and $27.8 million in the year ended December 31, 2021 and the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020, respectively. The increase was also driven by additional personnel-related expenses due to increased headcount and stock-based compensation, which was $62.3 million in the year ended December 31, 2021, $17.3 million in the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020, and $4.0 million (of which $3.8 million were in relation to the Sponsor Acquisition) in the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020.

Product development expense

Product development expense was $98.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $105.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. This change was primarily driven by a $11.8 million decrease in stock-based compensation due to forfeitures partially offset by a $3.9 million increase in personnel-related expenses.

Product development expense was $105.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $47.0 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $4.1 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. The change was primarily due to increased personnel-related expense as a result of higher employee headcount in product development functions and stock-based compensation, which was $45.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $7.5 million in the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $0.1 million in the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020.

Depreciation and amortization expense

Depreciation and amortization expense was $89.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $107.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2021. The decrease was primarily due to the full amortization of the legacy Badoo user base in July 2022 and white label contracts in 2021, which are no longer being amortized. These decreases were partially offset by increases in the amortization of intangibles acquired from the Fruitz acquisition in January 2022.

Depreciation and amortization expense was $107.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $91.8 million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $0.4 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. The increase was primarily due to increased expense related to the amortization of finite-lived intangible assets recognized in connection with the Sponsor Acquisition in the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

Interest income (expense)

65

Interest income (expense) was $(24.1) million for the year ended December 31, 2022, compared to $(24.6) million for the year ended December 31, 2021. The decrease was primarily due to the repayment of $200.0 million of debt in March 2021, as well as the Company investing surplus funds in money market funds in the fourth quarter of 2022 creating interest income, partially offset by an increase in interest rates on our outstanding debt under the credit agreements.

Interest income (expense) was $(24.6) million for the year ended December 31, 2021, $(21.9) million for the period from January 29, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and $0.1 million for the period from January 1, 2020 to January 28, 2020. The increase in interest expense was primarily due to increased interest expense associated with raising $575 million of debt on January 29, 2020 and raising an additional $275 million of debt in October 2020, of which $200 million was repaid in March 2021.

Other income (expense), net