Dating apps are dying, is Eli Lilly still a buy & Pimp My Portfolio with Owen Rask

Bryce Leske (0:00)

Bumble has just been sold. Is this the death of the dating app?

Alec Renehan (0:03)

It's come after a tough run for Bumble, including cutting a third of its staff last year as users drifted away from dating apps.

Bryce Leske (0:12)

Match Group is also struggling. Match Group is the holding company for some of the biggest dating apps, Tinder, Hinge. So it does beg the question, are dating apps dead?

Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a show where we explore what is possible in the world of investing. If you've just joined us for the very first time, a huge welcome to our community. My name's Bryce.

Alec Renehan (0:36)

And I'm Ran. And today we're talking about the potential death of the dating app. The data center contagion has spread beyond Firmus. We're answering a listener question from Belgium and Pimp My Portfolio returns with Owen Rask. Big episode, Bryce. But before all that, can I just say it's good to be home?

Bryce Leske (0:53)

It's good to be home. It is good to be home. We had a great time in New York, still reflecting on our amazing experience with Bill Ackman. Very excited to release that episode.

But nothing feels better than being back in the Equity Mates studio.

Alec Renehan (1:06)

Yeah, it's good.

Bryce Leske (1:08)

Central Park was great.

Alec Renehan (1:09)

I mean, New York is great.

New York was great for a trip. Everyone's hustling over there.

Everyone's got places to be and they're trying to get there fast. But yeah, it's nice to be able to visit and then come home to Australia. Now, if you want to see our Bill Ackman interview, the first place it will be available is FinFest. Tickets are sold out for the big day on Saturday. We're doing a preview for financial advisors where there still are tickets available. So you can grab them if you're a financial advisor. But rest assured, we will be releasing it in full alongside a number of other interviews we did while in New York.

Bryce Leske (1:45)

So Ren, speaking of events, we're really excited to announce that Equity Mates and Betashares are doing our first ever event designed specifically for women. We're very excited about it.

We certainly recognize that women are underrepresented in the investing community and when it comes to investing. So we want to do our best and be part of getting as many women engaged with investing as possible. So this is the first way that we're doing this. It is 12th of November here in Sydney. It's going to include drinks, canapes, and heaps of money conversations to get you engaged.

Alec Renehan (2:17)

Yeah. So if you're a new investor or you're an investor that wants to keep learning, or you know someone in your life that should be investing, this is an event to help people, or to help women in particular in this case get started. So head to the link in the YouTube or podcast description and grab your tickets. They are limited, but hopefully this is the first of many. We're doing so many events. We've got FinFest, we've got this event, we've got more to come next year. So if you want to start investing or you have people in your life who want to start investing but don't know where to start, this is the place.

Bryce Leske (2:52)

Love it. All right. Well, big episode. Let's get into it.

News that we're going to be covering today. Bumble has just been sold. Is this the death of the dating app? And Data Center Contagion is spreading off the back of the Firmus IPO being pulled. Let's start with Bumble though, Ren, because it's just been sold for 1.3 billion US dollars. So it does beg the question, are dating apps dead?

Alec Renehan (3:21)

Well, I mean, 1.3 billion US dollars is still a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money compared to what Bumble was valued at in 2021 when it listed. It peaked at above 14 billion dollars. So it's down about 92% from its listing. Bumble only made an annual profit once in its time as a public company. There was some accounting movements, like one-off accounting treatments that really helped them get to that profit.

They've been bought by an investment firm, Ithaca Holdings, but it's come after a tough run for Bumble, including cutting a third of its staff last year as users drifted away from dating apps.

Bryce Leske (4:00)

But Bumble isn't alone. Match Group is also struggling. Match Group is the holding company for some of the biggest dating apps, Tinder, Hinge, match.com.

There's a bunch of others in there, but those are probably the big three.