Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Bumble Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Eliot, and I will be your coordinator today. If you would like to register a question during today's event, I would now like to hand over to William Paul Taveras, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us to discuss Bumble Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. With me today are Bumble Inc.'s Founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, and CFO, Kevin Cook.

Before we begin, I would 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 the 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-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for, or in isolation from, our GAAP results. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP 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. We have a lot to cover today. I would like to recap what has been a very productive first year in our transformation and the excitement building inside Bumble Inc. as we work toward our platform and app relaunch in just a few months. I do not want to sugarcoat the challenging process that we are working through, but I am proud of our team, their pace of execution, and early accomplishments. Starting with performance, we closed out 2025 with fourth quarter revenue and EBITDA at the high end of our guidance ranges as we continue to emphasize financial discipline, balancing investment and sustainable long-term growth with healthy margins and cash generation. Kevin will provide perspective around the financial strides that we have made in just a moment. Turning to our transformation, the headline today is that we believe the heavy lift of our quality reset is behind us, and we are full steam ahead on product innovation. Before getting into the details, I want to set context. When I returned as CEO about a year ago, I came back with a clear focus: to rebuild this company from the inside out and return to what originally made Bumble Inc. so successful. What people come to Bumble Inc. for is to find love and make in-person connections, and they favor us for a simple but powerful reason: we build trust with women. We believe that when women feel safe, confident, and intentional about who they meet, the entire ecosystem works better. You get healthier interactions, a more balanced member base, and better outcomes for everyone. Our goal is to continue to lead in this area and to build the most woman-centric dating product in the market across features, design, and outcomes—one that…

Thank you, Whitney, and hello, everyone. In the fourth quarter, we delivered results at the high end of our guidance ranges. Revenue reflected the expected impact of our trust and safety initiatives— a deliberate reset of the member base—while profitability and cash flow demonstrated the underlying resilience of our model. Over the past year, we have managed the business with discipline, balancing targeted investment in product with careful cost control and a focus on strengthening our financial foundation. I will walk through our quarterly and full-year results before turning to our outlook. Unless otherwise noted, my comments are on a non-GAAP basis and comparisons are year over year. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $224 million compared to $262 million in the year-ago period. Bumble app revenue was $181 million compared to $212 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was $72 million, representing a margin of 32%, compared to $73 million and 28% in the prior-year period. The quarter reflected what we believe was the most acute top-funnel pressure associated with our quality reset actions. For the full year, total revenue was $966 million compared to $1.07 billion in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $314 million, representing a margin of 32%, compared to $304 million and 28% in the prior year. Selling and marketing expense was $161 million, representing 17% of revenue, compared to $259 million, or 24% of revenue, reflecting a more focused and efficient approach to member acquisition with greater emphasis on targeted and organic channels. We expect to maintain disciplined marketing spend in 2026 while incrementally increasing investment to support the rollout of our new products and in select member acquisition. Development expense was $96 million, representing 10% of revenue, compared to $84 million, or 8% of revenue in 2024, consistent with our plans to increase investment…

Thank you. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. We will now open for questions. First question comes from Nathaniel Feather with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question and congrats on the quarter. I guess first, thinking through a pretty ambitious product roadmap over the course of 2026, when you say registrations and active users have stabilized, as we look out over the course of the next year, what is the path to get those to start to accelerate and really improve? And of all of these kinds of changes you are talking about, help us think through the timing of when that might potentially happen. And then on the profitability side, adjusted EBITDA margin showing a really nice step up quarter over quarter—can you help us think through what are the puts and takes that are leading to that improvement? Thank you.

Thanks, Nathaniel, for the question. I will take the first part of the question, and we will talk about returning to user growth. I think it is important to just reemphasize that we just undertook something incredibly difficult without any product innovation to support us. Let me explain what I mean by that. We just underwent a membership overhaul, essentially, where we went in and we said quality is the goal—quality and safety and authenticity—which are the three most important things to women in dating, particularly when they date online, and we are going to take this on while we are still essentially under construction because we are still operating on our legacy tech stack. The fact that we were able to have registrations and active members stabilize during a transformation with little product innovation to support is actually quite remarkable, which is exciting for the next phase of this, which we said in the remarks, which is rolling out, to your point, a very ambitious but very doable 2026 product roadmap. Once 2.0 back-end infrastructure is up and running, and once we have migrated the 1.0 system to the 2.0 system, innovation becomes a lot more seamless, a lot quicker. The volume at which we can innovate becomes so much more plentiful than what we have seen in the past, and we have a very long roadmap covering what I said in the prepared remarks of solving women's pain points but also delivering these really incredible innovative features, tools, and ways of connecting that we believe will accelerate these cohorts. I think it is also important to note the oldest Gen Z right now are 28 years old, so we are just entering this peak intentional dating window, and when you look at our roadmap, it is extremely focused on reengaging this next generation who are stepping into intentional dating. On the timing front, what we said in our prepared remarks is exactly the way to think about things. This starts as soon as 2.0 is in flight, and it will be a very consistent drumbeat of innovation. We are super inspired and committed, and we are building with innovation at the core. I hope that answers the question, and I will kick the profitability piece over to you, Kevin.

Thanks, Whitney. Hey, Nathaniel. On profitability for Q1, we continue to be committed to operating discipline, so we are pleased to see continued adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. I will say Q1 is probably slightly elevated. We are expecting—as Whitney highlighted, and you heard from our prepared remarks—to launch significant new product beginning in Q2 in market, so you will see a slight increase in marketing to support new product innovation and some very specific product marketing around new enhancements to product. You will also see product development costs increase midyear slightly in order to support 2.1, 2.2, and the fast follows that Whitney was describing earlier. I do believe that structurally, our margin profile is higher than it has been historically. We are much more efficient today than the business has been in the past. We are not guiding the year here, obviously, but we do see the opportunity for sustained very high adjusted EBITDA margin throughout the year, and, to the extent that we inflect growth in the business, there is enormous operating leverage in the model.

Helpful. Thank you.

We will now turn to Shweta Khajuria with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my questions. First is on these product revamps. Whitney, how are you thinking about measuring progress, and what will be some of your milestones as you track that the revamp is going well and how you measure it? And is there something that you plan to share with us in terms of metrics, whether it is either top of the funnel or some internal metrics that you are following that would help us get a sense of how it is going? Because we may not see the impact on monetization just yet, but if engagement is improving, that would be a good sign. The second is on investment on the tech replatforming. Is there additional investment that you are expecting, or how should we think about that? Thank you.

Shweta, nice to hear from you, and thanks for the questions. You know, Shweta, can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Sorry about that. We were having challenges with the microphone. The way we think about outcomes, or KPIs—how we measure this—is really about member outcomes. What we have started to share with you today, as you saw, is that the deeper-funnel improvements are really what measure the health of this business and how it is performing for members. If you have really good top-of-funnel results but negative bottom-of-funnel results, you do not have a healthy consumer business, and this industry and this product are inherently dependent on the outcomes that we drive for our members. The way we are thinking about 2.0 outcomes is not dissimilar to the way we think about it right now, but ultimately it is: are our members satisfied? Are they getting what they came for, which is high-quality dates with people they actually want to meet? Are those dates safe? Are they reliable? And are they converting into what they came to look for? This is precisely how you drive top of funnel, because when people come, have a good experience, go on great dates, they tell their friends, and that is the flywheel. That is everything we are focused on. In order to arrive at that outcome, we had to really enhance the way in which people discover one another. We had to focus on quality. Quality in this instance is about helping people show up better. How do we get you to showcase yourself in a way that is actually driving curiosity from members so that you can create matches and go out on great dates? You will see this come to life in 2.0, but ultimately it is all about the outcomes and the success that our members find. Alright.

Hello, Shweta. You had a question, I think, about the tech stack and the investment required. Recognize 2025 was an investment year from a product development point of view, and we are continuing with that investment in 2026. Over the course of 2025, we built a new, modern AI-oriented engineering organization primarily in Austin, Texas, and so much of that investment is behind us, including both on product and on the platform. You will see some additional investment throughout 2026, of course. Things to recognize: there is a lot of efficiency in our engineering efforts currently, and we are benefiting substantially from the application of AI in our product development. In terms of appreciating the level of investment required, there are some infrastructure costs based on the existing set of offerings—primarily data center costs—that we continue to maintain while at the same time we are building this cloud-native, AI-led tech stack that you have heard a lot about already. There is some duplication of costs for a portion of 2026 in that respect. Longer term, you will see a continued modest level of product development expense increase tied to revenue, just to continue to produce the sort of innovation that we are expecting, but you should see some efficiency—some operating leverage—in that line once we have got the duplicate costs taken out of the system.

Okay. Thanks, Shweta. Thanks, Kevin.

We will now turn to Steven Zhu with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Moore Robley in for Steven. Thank you for taking my question. Appreciate the color on direct billing, and I was just curious if you could frame how big of a potential this could be for you all this year, given how much of a contributor this is to the EBITDA guide. I understand there are some trade-offs between efficiency and causing user friction. And then a second question: how should we expect the new product initiatives to be rolled out globally across the Bumble-affiliated apps? Additionally, do you see any opportunities with respect to international expansion? Thanks.

I will take the direct billing question. You are right. We saw in Q4 a full percentage point of gross margin expansion as a result of alternative billing. In Q4, we implemented our Apple Pay program, and what we have seen is a very, very rapid adoption by users of Apple Pay. In fact, as of today—quarter to date—we have already got more than half of our U.S. iOS payments being made through Apple Pay. It is a very cost benefit, or improvement, to gross margin. We believe it is mostly sustainable based on our understanding of the various cases and settlements to date. There are, as you know, some changes that are occurring in that regard, so we have not built all of the long-term benefit into our model. Clearly for Q1, we are far enough into the quarter that we have great confidence in our adjusted EBITDA guide there. But as I think about the year, we have hedged that number slightly. We have not seen, by the way, any friction. When we built plans, we did think that there could be some impact on revenue. There has not been to date, and we are about three months into the program. We have noted too that there seems to be an improvement in renewals as a consequence of using these alternative billing methods, which was somewhat unexpected but obviously welcome.

On the other portion of the question, the back-end infrastructure—what we are calling tech 2.0—that will be applied to the entire portfolio, with the exception of BFF, because that lives on the Geneva infrastructure. As you will recall, we acquired Geneva largely due to how great their tech, their team, and that infrastructure is that they have, which was super enabled for groups and beyond one-to-one, which is going to be a huge part of our focus in 2026 and beyond. We really believe— not to go on too much of a departure—but we really believe that one of the largest opportunities for us is bringing people together in groups of people. Really taking this beyond one-to-one is inherently how a lot of the Gen Z cohort chooses to socialize and meet and date. To put a pin in this, tech 2.0 will be rolling out to all products that are on legacy infrastructure, and will be enabled globally. That will be replacing any legacy systems. Thank you.

We will now turn to Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe two that build on some of the answers so far and just trying to take it a little bit further. When you look at the current competitive landscape of investments against growth and investments against product that you see across the dating horizon, how are you thinking about positioning yourself competitively in a 2.0 world of where you think the biggest opportunity for both incremental growth of new users or reengagement of existing users or legacy users sits for the company when you think about that competitive landscape? And then second question would be—and maybe it is qualitative more than quantitative at this point—how are you thinking about the incremental margin structure of the company in a fully deployed 2.0 world relative to 1.0 on the other side of the investment cycle? Thanks so much.

Thanks so much, Eric, for the question. I will take the first part, and then I will make one comment on long-term investment strategy, and then I will kick it to Kevin for the particulars. This is really an important topic. First and foremost, let us back up and actually look at what makes Bumble Inc. so unique and sets us apart inherently from any of our competitors. The most important part of our differentiator has been core to us since I started this company in 2014, and that is our obsessive focus on women. We have become a trusted women's brand. This stands true even today on, quite frankly, somewhat outdated technology and product offerings. We are not up to par with our product right now, but we will be, and our brand is so resonant and our brand carries us in such a way that this is a strong driver for us in 2.0. When you see the rollout of 2.0—and I know I mentioned this in the prepared remarks—I have been in every pixel, every meeting, so deep in the details, reimagining what the dream women's app would look like in 2026 to reengage women, both Gen Z and millennial alike, and Gen X, frankly, because this is a highly monetizable cohort. They are also equally looking for love and connection. How could we reimagine this and innovate our way to be the preferred dating platform and connection platform for women? I want to reemphasize that women and the trust that we have with women, and the authentic design system of putting women first—beyond just a function of who goes first or who does not—this is inherently what sets us apart. The second thing is I am a firm believer that the future is beyond one-to-one in…

Hey, Eric. On the operating cost point with respect to the updated platform, the way to think about it is we are operating from these very old data centers today. When we cease reliance on the data center and have a true cloud platform, operating costs will be substantially lower. With respect to innovation, innovation will become much less expensive and more rapid. We will be able to iterate in a way that is not possible today. That should unlock—separate question, but it should unlock—some incremental monetization or revenue opportunity as well. With the modern platform and what is contemplated in terms of new product introduction, you will see a greater reliance on AI. You will see an offset perhaps in token costs associated there, but there should be a net benefit to operating margin from our move to the modern platform.

Great. Thank you.

We will now turn to Cory Carpenter with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good to talk again. You alluded to the chapter-based structure—curious if you could elaborate on your vision there and then the role that you see the swipe playing on the 2.0 platform. And then just bigger picture, once 2.0 is out, how radical the change will users see and how quickly of a change will they see in the app once you roll it out? Thank you.

Hey, Cory. It is great to chat again. It has been a while. Yes, let us talk about the chapter-based profile. We basically took the stance that the last decade has reduced people down to profile, and this has happened across the internet. Ultimately, dating only works when you really understand the story of someone. This is where chemistry and connection really happen. It is the intersection of someone going from just a stranger that you dismiss to someone you are genuinely interested in. As we reimagined the profile, we thought, why not bring people to life as a story? Everyone has a story to tell, and this is where people become interesting. What you will see in this chapter-based approach will not be just your standard, flat, non-interesting profile that everybody has become so used to across platforms. This is really an opportunity to capture the essence of who you are so that you go from being Cory of whatever town you live in with whatever age you have listed and just some photo—you turn into who you truly are—and this will ignite curiosity from the people that are exposed to your story. This is also a gateway to allow people to interact more dynamically. Today, on the current Bumble app, you can either broadly swipe right or broadly swipe left, which is a no, on someone’s profile. You are saying, “Yep, Cory is in,” or “No, Cory is out,” in one swift go, and this reduces the options for people to actually get better matches. We will be introducing more dynamic ways for somebody to express interest in your story, rather than just your profile, and this is going to drive more dynamic engagement, spark better conversation, and ultimately drive better KPIs across the board—like engagement and chances…

Awesome. Thank you.

We will now turn to Robert Coolbrith with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. I just wanted to ask a follow-up on Cory’s question. As I think there was a second part there about swipe mechanic, is that still going to be a core part of the user experience? And then as you move into these more detailed, chapter-oriented profiles, two questions there: what is the strategy for getting existing users to fill those out and engage with the more fulsome profile? And secondarily, is there any trade-off or impact on paid user conversion versus user retention as you make some of those changes? Does it slow down people’s consumption of profiles, which has, I think, historically been a way that you have driven paid user conversion? Thank you.

Thanks so much for the question. The good news is we have thought about all of these things top to bottom, left to right, for a very long time, and we have teams making sure that revenue and monetization mechanics have been thought through and that there is a do-no-harm approach to revenue and monetization with the 2.0 experience. I want you to take some consolation in that—that we are not going to just roll something out that topples our monetization strategy. We are being very modest and very conservative with that. In fact, we have set up and positioned the new profile to have new gateway opportunities for better monetization over time. On the swipe piece, the way we are phrasing this internally is: what does life look like beyond the swipe? That does not necessarily mean this binary situation of it is either there or it is not. It is much more nuanced than that. We are testing several iterations of engaging opportunities of how you would get to a match. The swipe is the way you get to a match. If the match is the goal, the swipe is the mechanism. We are testing several mechanisms to get you to a wanted and mutual match as quickly, efficiently, and in the most compatible way as possible. The mechanism of swiping may dynamically shift, and in certain markets, we may test with no swipe. In other markets, we may preserve the swipe. We have multi-mechanism tests that we are going to be running to make sure that we do what the members want the most, that serves our members best, that is in line with the KPIs that suggest we are getting people to the best outcomes, and, of course, that does not disrupt revenue and preserves the strength of the revenue side of the business. I hope that has answered the question.

That is great. Thank you very much.

Oh, sorry—there was a second part of that: how do we get people to fill in the more robust parts of the onboarding? This has been a long game. When I came back a year ago, I knew that this is where we would be this year, but I needed a year to get to the quality transformation. What was a huge part of that quality transformation overhaul? It was trying to drive more of what we called approved members. What constitutes an approved member? Someone who has adequate information in their profile—enough intel that we have to work with to drive compatibility on the back end—enough photos, selfie verification, and, hopefully, ID verification. We have already been planting the seed for this moment for the last several months by trying to drive people to fill in more information. We have made a ton of progress there, so it is not a cold start situation where all of a sudden we have a brand-new profile and we have no information. We are being really thoughtful in how, what, and where we ask you to fill in more information. It is not going to feel punitive, stressful, or exhausting. It is going to be dynamic and fun. As we talked about with “b,” our AI assistant, down the road we are going to be able to get much more robust information about who you are and what you are looking for, and really understand your story through more engaging mechanisms—whether that is voice or typing—but in a conversational format like an AI product. This is going to be the long game of how we get more dynamic information. It is a step-by-step plan, but the good news is we have already made a lot of progress.

As another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions, so this concludes our Q&A and today's conference call. We would like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.