On Monday, Bumble announced its acquisition of French dating app Fruitz. Although the terms of the deal acquisition was not provided, the acquisition is Bumble’s first-ever since it came into the picture. Fruitz will therefore be the latest addition to Bumble’s family of apps that includes Baddo.
With Fruitz, Bumble wants to enter a market characterized by the Gen Z population. Fruitz was founded in 2017 by Julian Kabab (CEO), Fabrice Bascoulergue (CTO), and Arnaud Ruols (CFO) and through the use of various fruits metaphors “encourages open and honest communication of dating intentions”. The platform assigns fruits to a relationship type, helping people find the types of relationships they want, either a long-term commitment or a simple one-night action.
According to Fruitz CEO, the idea for the platform came from a personal experience where he used a dating platform and matched with someone that had a completely different intention from his. Fruitz narrows matches and connects people with only similar intentions, thereby optimizing the time that people spend on the dating platform. “Expressing what you’re looking for is not easy because we’re fearful of being judged. As a result, no one was being honest with their intentions and everyone was wasting each other’s time. Empowering people to be honest with their intentions was our first mission”, he said.
While Bumble declined to make comments on Fruitz’s total users, it did mention that the app was experiencing meteoric growth across Canada, Spain, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands. The platform has, however, been downloaded 5.6 million times worldwide across App Store and Google Play store according to data from Sensor Tower. Fruitz was ranked 4th on the iPhone’s top free charts in the Lifestyle category in France as of February 3rd, 2022.
In acquiring Fruitz, Bumble is most particular about the user demographics (the Gen Z population) and nothing else. This younger population which is new to the dating market could help Bumble achieve newer growth levels.
In a note it wrote last month, Goldman Sachs noted that “Over the last few years online dating has evolved to be the most common way for people to meet & date in many geographies. But despite the growing social acceptance of online dating, penetration rates have remained low and as a result, we see ample runway ahead for growth for industry participants”.
A statement by Bumble’s founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd reads, “Fruitz is a brand and leadership team that I’ve been following for years. Julian, Fabrice, and Arnaud are dynamic and brilliant leaders who have built a unique product that has struck a powerful chord with consumers in France and across Europe. By plugging the app into our technology platform, community support, brand and growth marketing, we can accelerate Fruitz’s growth. The acquisition of Fruitz allows us to expand our product offering for consumers in line with our focus on empowering relationships”.
With the online dating market expected to grow to reach about $10 billion in 2025, companies like Bumble are doing all they can to be on top of the market.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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