The popular dating app Bumble has completed its first acquisition with the purchase of French dating app Fruitz. Fruitz is a rising star in Europe, particularly among the Gen Z demo. Though the app has the familiar swipe-based interface that many mobile dating apps use, its USP is that it allows users to choose one of four fruits, each representing what kind of relationship the user is looking for (committed, one-night-stand, and so on).
Fruitz was founded in 2017 and it will continue to act as an independent app under new parent company Bumble. In a statement announcing the acquisition, Bumble revealed the entire Fruitz team will be staying on and continuing work on the app in its new home. While Bumble gains a hot new demographic with its purchase of Fruitz, the company says Fruitz will benefit by leveraging Bumble’s machine learning, localization, and safety platforms.
Announcing the acquisition, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said, “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 . . . The acquisition of Fruitz allows us to expand our product offerings in line with our focus on empowering relationships for everyone.”
Fruitz CEO Julian Kabab added, “The idea for Fruitz came from my very first experience with dating apps, which was a disaster. Simply put, the lovely person I met had a very different intention to mine. 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.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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