Bumble (BMBL) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

I will now hand the conference over to Will discuss Bumble's 2nd Quarter 2026 Financial Results. With me today are Bumble's founder and CEO Whitney Woolford and CFO Kevin Cook. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call today are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and reflect our current expectations based on our beliefs, assumptions and information currently available to us. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occur after this call. Descriptions of factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in more detail in today's earnings press release and our periodic filings with the SEC.

During the call, we also refer to certain non-gap financial measures. These non-gap measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or an isolation from our gap results. Reconciliation to the most comparable gap measures are available in our earnings press release, which is available on the investor relations section of our website at ir. bumble. com.

With that, I will turn the call over to Whitney.

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. Second quarter results were in line with our expectations and Kevin will take you through the numbers in greater detail shortly. As we get into the final stages of our transformation, I want to share our progress, what we are learning and where we are headed next. Over the first half of this year, we have improved the quality of our member base and we are rebuilding on a stronger foundation. We have made meaningful progress.

From here, the path back to growth is in clear sight and it will be defined by two things. One, product innovation and two, winning back the cultural zeitgeist through brand and marketing investment. We have a very clear view of what is needed to win on both of these fronts and we are executing with full focus. Last time we talked about our new technology platform on which we will deliver the reimagined bumble experience. We are now in the process of porting core features and functionality to the new tech stack. Key to completing this effort is migrating critical data from our own data centers onto modern cloud infrastructure, the underpinning of the entire platform.

Due primarily to the volume and complexity of the data, this has been more time consuming than we initially expected and delayed us by a couple of months and has pushed our new interaction model and parts of our innovation roadmap. We have a clear plan internally and we are making good progress. Once we are fully on the platform, we will be able to ship products faster than we have ever been able to before. In the meantime, we are not standing still. We have been able to execute on other important improvements to address number pain points on the bumble app. I will share a few changes. Changing how CHAP are initiated.

Now, for the first time on bumble, by default, anyone will be able to send only one single opening message and the conversation does not progress until the recipient responds. We are also addressing another major complaint that existed from our members and we are extending the 24-hour match response window. In our initial test, we saw very positive signals with members experiencing a significant increase in CHAP initiation and mutual CHAP rate. We plan to roll out both updates globally by the end of this month.

As I touched on earlier, we are also making a series of other impactful algorithmic improvements to show how we sort and surface recommendations. These changes are driving meaningful improvements and outcomes for our members and testing, including solid gains in members with a match and CHAP initiation and culminating in substantial increases in average mutual CHAP. These wins help drive progress towards our North Star, delivering our members successful dates. The goal with many of our updates is to get people out from behind the screen faster to meeting in person.

In addition to strengthening the core experience, you will see us lean more into real life experiences, more ways to meet, not just match, and more ways to meet together with friends instead of just one to one. I am a firm believer that the future of meeting people in groups will become more important. People love to come together in groups and see who they naturally share chemistry with once they have met. Bumble can be a catalyst for helping people socialize more broadly. This is precisely the foundational work that we are doing on group experiences. Group socializing is a real part of how Gen Z prefers to meet, and we believe Bumble represents a natural bridge from meeting to socializing to then dating.

We are already seeing signs of this in our group's initiative at BFF. We are seeing strong growth in both the number of active groups and the average number of active members per group on BFF. It has been very exciting to see the natural and organic demand and love for the BFF brand and how much it resonates with Gen Z women in particular.

Another initiative that supports the IRL theme is plans. Our standalone apps that we are testing for curated in-person social events with the functionality to match with attendees after the event is over. Plans is showing promising results in very early tests this summer marketed to the youngest cohort of prospective members. The premise of plans is simple. Meet first, match later.

This comes to life via these group experiences consistent with how younger generations are finding connection and eventually love. Together, the chat initiation feature, algorithmic improvements, and group initiatives are important steps towards the better experience our members want, and I am pleased with the progress that we've made. However, this alone does not satisfy our full ambition. Frankly, this has been the most frustrating part of the technical transformation.

The inability to ship the features our members are craving at a cadence that modern technology demands. The good news is that we are close. So, let's turn to what's next. The exciting stuff.

To close out 2026, we expect to begin shipping a multitude of product enhancements that our members have been asking for, ranging from profile and onboarding updates to more compelling, interesting ways to meet people in real life, along with testing elements of our fundamentally new interaction model that I lightly previewed last quarter. Given the data migration delay, we now expect to begin rolling this out in very early 2027. The core idea is a shift away from optimizing for swipe speed and velocity toward something more intentional. Fewer, better, or considered signals. What will replace this light, I will be keeping under wraps a bit longer for competitive purposes. But it is designed to generate more immediate interactions, and most importantly, better outcomes, mimicking real life and eliminating the friction and delay that exists in current dating app models.

The early member feedback on the new interaction model has been very positive. And, Gen Z in particular, as well as millennials, both women and men have responded enthusiastically. We remain very bullish and excited about the direction we are headed, turning to be our AI dating assistance tool. It's expected to play an important role in how the experience will be delivered, but never degrading the human-first approach that we will always adhere to. Let me be clear. B is not replacing the swipe. We are not aiming for an AI-driven experience. B is simply the intelligence under the hood.

We believe that AI tools can help engaged members show up if their true authentic selves even better connect with a higher degree of relevancy and get to better outcomes. B is in select member hands for onboarding and matching today, and it is resulting in a more complete and authentic view of the individual. Member feedback has been that the resulting matches are more relevant thanks to the greater signal. We are being very deliberate about how we deploy B because trust is paramount. We believe the biggest opportunity to our overall member satisfaction is to provide greater value to all non-paying members, which can attract more people, especially Gen Z, to the platform and drive increased engagement. We will be making the free experience much more compelling.

For example, by offering free limited access to like to you, the most in demand part of the product, which is currently only available to paid members. We believe that there's a lot of opportunity and allowing members to see the value and then convert to a subscribing member for more access. We've been testing different iterations, and what we have seen is that in early results, there is a significant uptick in yes votes, matches, and mutual chats. These are all key for driving top of funnel and member satisfaction, which drives the flywheel of word-of-mouth growth.

These tests are early and actively underway, but we do look forward to updating you next quarter as we have more to share. More broadly, we are planning to re-architect our subscription tiers to be simpler and more inviting upfront, emphasizing a great free experience with a clean, obvious path into paid tiers that can deliver clear value by enhancing member outcomes. As we build more innovation into our product, we will have more value-additive offerings to distribute across the different pricing tiers, our philosophy of symbols, monetize value, and outcomes, not friction. This will take some tuning, but we have conviction that a better free experience is how we widen the top of funnels and earn the right to monetize.

This is how you build the kind of product loyalty that lasts. At the other end of the funnel, we are exploring a higher subscription tier than we have previously offered, one that really anchors on mutual serious intent, which is ultimately what will drive value for a higher paying member, turning to brand investments. So far this year, our investment focus has been on technology and products, and I've just walked you through some of those highlights. We have maintained a very strong margin for more than a year as we pull back on marketing spend while the product was under transformation, in order to not waste dollars on bringing people into a product experience that was not up to their or our standards.

But now as we enter the final stages of our transformation, it is time to prioritize understanding what women want, need, and expect from dating, consumer brands, and experiences. This is my strength, and I'm excited to go full forth back into rebuilding the brand into an incredibly relevant, beloved company that once again captures the cultural zeitgeist. A brand that not only young women love and advocate for, but can also win culture with men. We are starting from a strong base. Among those who know Bumble, we continue to lead in our category on brand favorability. However, the younger cohort just entering our category does not have the same familiarity with Bumble. This is not product related. It is an awareness issue.

And this is good news for us, because we have an opportunity to go back and do what I did when I launched this company and take over culture again. We're doing this by reinvesting in community, creators, and hyper local energy, pointing it directly at a younger audience. This will be a big focus for us in 2027, and it will start ramping in Q3 and Q4 of this year. It is time to start reinvesting for growth. However, as evidenced by this past year, we will remain prudent and surgical about how we spend, and we will be mindful of healthy margins. It is important to recognize that product and marketing are not separate initiatives. They complement one another.

In our business, the most important element of the product is people using it. The right mix of members makes every match more relevant, and every conversation better, which means we attract shapes the quality of the experience itself. But that flywheel only turns if the product works, and the people marketing brings to the top of the funnel. That's why the core experience improvements come first, and why we are now stepping up brand investment. It is also why we expect the investment supporting our new product updates to be more efficient than the performance marketing spend that you saw from our company in prior years. Our new approach to performance marketing is boosting the great content that our creators and members are making, and the success stories that stem from Bumble, along with highlighting all of our IRL activities that have been resonating very well with Gen Z. To summarize, the core app will be getting better every day, and our velocity of innovation will only accelerate as we complete our data migration.

The early results from the changes that we've been able to push through are encouraging their leading to better experiences for a healthier, more stable member base. Before I close, I set us back in a CEO, March of 2025. My first priority was to do a quality reset. We raised the bar on profile quality, focus on subscription revenue, and took the necessary and difficult steps to transform our tech backend to be modern and advanced for future innovation. We transformed our teams, brought in the best talent, and operated in a much more lean and efficient capacity.

Essentially, I knew we had to shrink in order to grow. It has not been easy, but I believe it has been worth it. I believe the best is ahead of us. When I stepped back in, the top complaint was trust with profiles on the platform. Prior complaints about bots, famers, and low quality profiles have, in many respects, been addressed as the quality of our member base has dramatically improved, turning our member base into one of our strengths. Now, we will deliver the roadmap that our members deserve, with the innovation that delivered the outcomes that they are seeking. Members first, always. We will win back culture with incredible marketing and brand experiences, and that is how Bumble will win.

Demand for love and human connection has never been in question. In fact, as AI progressives, I find myself asking what won't be replaced by AI, and the answer is very clear. The need for real love, friendship, and connection in the real world with other humans, because we are better together. Our job is to build products for the of it, and that is exactly what our team is doing. Thank you so much, and with that, I will turn it over to Kevin.

Thank you, Whitney. Hello, everyone. For the second quarter, total revenue finished in the upper half of our guidance range, and adjusted EBITDA, exceeded the high end. Consistent with the strategy Whitney just described, we are past the most acute effects of the quality reset, our member base is stabilizing, and we are shifting focus toward investment in product, technology, and brand marketing. I will review our quarterly results before turning to the outlook, unless otherwise noted, my comments are on a non-gap basis, and comparisons are year over year. Total revenue was $211 million compared to $248 million a year ago.

Forage change was a tailwind of approximately $3 million in the quarter. Bumble app revenue was $172 million compared to $201 a year ago. Badu app and other revenue was $39 million compared to $47 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was $73 million, representing a 35% margin, compared to 95 million and 38% a year ago. We have continued to produce healthy margins even as we have invested more in product development to modernize the platform. We are also beginning to accelerate brand marketing ahead of our product rollouts.

This spend will likely bring adjusted EBITDA margins in line with historical levels over the second half of the year. This is the expected normalization of the cost base we have selected well-timed resourcing behind this next transformation phase.

Gross margin expanded roughly 380 basis points year over year with cost of revenue at 26% of revenue versus 29%, driven by continued adoption of alternative billing methods and the corresponding reduction in aggregator fees. We expect alternative billing to remain a year over year tailwind to gross margin through the balance of the year. On operating expenses, selling and marketing expense was 28 million or 14% of revenue compared to 30 million or 12%. We managed marketing spend to well below historical levels through the second quarter as we invested primarily in product updates with a planned acceleration beginning in the third quarter. Product development expense was $31 million or 15% up from 24 million and 10% a year ago, reflecting our continued investment in platform modernization, including the infrastructure migration Whitney described.

General and administrative expense was 25 million or 12% compared to 27 million or 11% a year ago. When reviewing our gap results, please note that our net loss of 128 million dollars includes a non-cash impairment charge of 169 million. This charge has no impact on our operations, cash flow or liquidity, and therefore has excluded from adjusted D to dot. Excluding the impact of the charge, the company generated positive net income in the quarter. With respect to the balance sheet and cash flow, we continue to generate strong cash flow. In the quarter, we generated $54 million of operating cash flow and $51 million of free cash flow. Year to date, operating cash flow was $131 million and free cash flow was $125 million.

We concluded the second quarter with $154 million of cash and cash equivalents. Turning to the outlook, our focus is on activating our higher quality member base through the investments in product and marketing Whitney outlined, which we expect ultimately lead to member growth and its derivative effects on payers and revenue. These benefits will take time to show up in the financials, but we believe best position us for durable engagement and monetization. For the third quarter, we expect total revenue in the range of $205 million to $213 million, including BumbleApp revenue of $167 million to $173 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $56 million to $60 million, representing an approximately 28% margin at the midpoint. More broadly, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to continue to normalize over the remainder of 2026 as we increase investment in technology and talent to modernize the platform and drive product innovation, and as we aim marketing at supporting new products, organic member growth, and brand.

In closing, Q2 played out as expected with stable revenue, continued growth margin expansion, and strong cash flow. In the second half of the year, we are leveraging our strong margin profile and cash generation to invest in the vision and transformation Whitney outlined, maintaining strong operating discipline at every step.

Thanks so much for the questions, Nathan. I'll take those. So the data migration delay, it's really due just primarily to the complexity of the data and just the vast nature of how much data there is. And as you can imagine, we would rather get this perfectly right than beat some deadline. And so, you know, we're taking our time on making sure that this gets done properly. Now, remember, this data migration will be a part of what we have called tech 2.0 transformation. This will set us up for finally the ability to really push out great product. And I'm going to get into this in a second because there's two sides of this. Great member facing features and the velocity should be extraordinary compared to where we've been.

So as an example, we have a very robust roadmap, as you can imagine, that has, you know, essentially a map over the last year while we've been technically constrained due to the nature of our resources. And the, you know, the steps needed to just complete this data migration, it has hindered us from shipping excellent product updates that the members can see, feel, engage with. That's just one part of it because remember that a big component of this 2.0 transformation is the next gen recommendation engine. What do I mean by best? As you know, we are a platform that is extremely reliant on making sure that we serve our members relevant people to interact with. On the legacy algorithmic system, the recommendations engine, it could have taken us months to make very, you know, marginal changes.

The velocity and the ability we will have now once fully migrated onto next gen REX is going to be extraordinary for what we can do for our members. The way we can algorithmically make, you know, enhancements and changes to serve our members better, to get them better matches in a quicker, more efficient, more, you know, relevant manner. So that's really, that's touching on the first two pieces of that. Let me just summarize that really quick. Data migration delayed by just a couple of months to get it right. Really only because of the depth of that data and the complexity of it. Yes, this will, this will convert to extreme velocity of outputs for great product updates for our members.

Super bullish and excited about the roadmap that we have. Now let's turn to margins. So as I said in my prepared remarks, we were very, very mindful of preserving margins and operating in the most efficient way we possibly could while we took these huge leaps that were necessary and painful as I touched on to really set ourselves up for long term success. Both of those things being the quality reset and the technical transformation. Now that we are looking towards the end and the light is at the end of the tunnel, it is time to market again. It is time to grow. So as you saw, we are really going to be kind of putting most of that margin decrease into marketing.

That is where the cost is going. And it's strategic marketing. It's not just spending to spend. This is really all about recapturing culture, recapturing that young dating audience. And this is what we know how to do extraordinarily well. So that is precisely where the margins go. As far as normalization of margins, we will spend to grow. We will not spend just to spend. So as long as we are growing, we will be spending, but you can expect margins to always be managed in a really healthy and mindful way.

Thank you so much for the question, Andrew. So one of the things that we care most about is not overwhelming a member. Simplicity is the name of the game. And when we make these enhancements, I don't want you to think about it as we're just adding 100 new bells and whistles to this. That is not what is happening. These are oftentimes silent enhancements in terms of the disruption to a member. So these are micro-enhanced and then they're meaningful enhancements.

I'll give you a couple quick examples. One large complaint we get right now is the overwhelm of the like-to-tabs for women in particular. We have several updates that are in the pipeline to make that a very pleasant, efficient, and seamless experience. So basically, and I hope I'm answering this properly, but we aren't just going to overwhelm the app one day with like 20 new features. That's not how this is going to work. We are going to be extremely mindful about not overwhelming the member, which is precisely why our new interaction model, the swipe-free interaction model will not just turn on one random day for everybody. We are going to very, very thoughtfully and strategically and mindfully test our way into these changes so that we don't disrupt the ecosystem and we just always provide a more seamless, more simplistic, less clunky, more rewarding, outcome-driven experience for our members.

Yes, it's a really great question. So again, this team is extraordinary at putting in guardrails, right? There are certain things that we will and will not tolerate, and that is very much part of all of the tests. So for example, right now we have several tests in flight where we are essentially letting people see who liked them up to a certain number of people per day or some certain level of cadence without giving too much information with a guardrail on ARPOO, on revenue decline, on payer penetration, all of the things that drive good business. But what we have seen in early tests, and I want to reinforce that these are early tests, is that this actually leads to greater willingness to become a paying member, because all of these things that drive outcomes like casting yes votes or getting a match or a chat or a mutual chat, these are the things that determine in members' perception of success and success leads to wanting to use the product more and get a better experience.

And so by letting the member actually experience that higher tier, which is the like you tab, which is the most used feature on the product, by letting them to experience without putting the paywall up right away, is actually showing more positivity than you might expect. And so again, we're going to be very mindful and halfway into this with very strict guardrails around what we will and will not tolerate when it comes to all those other business metrics.