Weekly Market Expectation
Bumble Eyes $6 Billion IPO
- The beehive-themed dating & networking company, who markets itself as empowering women by letting them make the first move, is reportedly planning to IPO at a $6B-$8B valuation in early 2021.
- Founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, a co-founder of Tinder, Bumble has since grown to become one of the most popular dating apps. The company sold a majority stake last year to private equity firm Blackstone Group.
- While the dating app has been in talks with banks, no plans have been finalized and the timing of an IPO could still change.
- The Bottom Line: Competition in the dating app business has continued to heat up in recent years. Bumble is a rival to Match Group, which has a market capitalization of $30 billion and a portfolio of dating apps like Tinder, Match, and OkCupid. In February, Bloomberg reported that Match Group had approached another competitor, Meet Group, about a possible takeover. Even Facebook entered the fray earlier this year when it launched a new feature dubbed Dating.
- Impact on Small to Midsized Businesses: Bumble is joining the parade of other tech startups (Airbnb, Palantir, Doordash) in the IPO market. For SMEs in the social networking space, Bumble’s IPO will increase the competitive landscape.
Sources: CrunchBase, Bloomberg, Forbes
Bioform Lands $100M Series C For Digital Therapeutics
- Led by Softbank, digital therapeutics company Biofourmis has raised $100 million in a new round of funding. The idea behind the Boston-based company is to predict diseases before they happen to improve patients’ health outcomes. The company offers patient-facing tools like wearable biosensors and an app to report symptoms, along with clinician-facing tools to allow for remote monitoring.
- The Bottom Line: At the core, Biofourmis is focused on three broad areas of therapeutics: cardiovascular, respiratory, and oncology. With the new funding, the company will structure itself to have two major divisions: Biofourmis Therapeutics and Biofourmis Health. Furthermore, the company will use the funding to develop, validate, and commercialize released and unreleased digital therapeutics products and services.
- Impact on Small to Midsized Businesses: Due to the pandemic, demand for remote monitoring has risen which has benefitted SMEs in the digital technology industry. However, Biofourmis’ new round of funding will increase the competition within the industry as the company looks to accelerate their growth opportunities and gain market share.
Sources: CrunchBase