Bumble swipes left on Match Group’s patent infringement lawsuit

Tinder's parent company is suing Bumble for patent infringement - here is Bumble's response 
Bumble's founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd: "I'm proud of the community we've been able to bring together"
Jordan Doner
Amelia Heathman20 March 2018

Bumble, the female-first dating app led by founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe-Herd, has published an open letter saying it “swipes left” on allegations of patent infringement.

Match Group, which owns dating platforms including Tinder and PlentyOfFish, launched a lawsuit last week accusing Bumble of infringing patents held by Tinder, including the infamous Tinder swipe.

However, Bumble has responded by rejecting the claims.

“We swipe left on you. We swipe left on your multiple attempts to buy us, copy us, and, now, to intimidate us," said the letter.

“We’ll never be yours. No matter the price tag, we’ll never compromise our values.”

The letter refers to attempts by Match to acquire Bumble last year, reportedly for $450 million. However, sources close to the company told TechCrunch that Bumble is likely to be worth $1 billion, making it a tech unicorn.

“We – a woman-founded, women-led company – aren’t scared of aggressive corporate culture. That’s what we call bullying, and we swipe left on bullies. Ask the thousands of users we’ve blocked from our platform for bad behaviour,” said Bumble.

Wolfe-Herd: we were underestimated from day one

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, Wolfe Herd said: “We have been underestimated from day one. People didn’t take us seriously and assumed we would fail. That meant we were able to run fast and hard without anyone trying to destroy us because they didn’t think we were worth destroying.”

Whilst we were not allowed to discuss the open letter directly with Wolfe Herd due to legal reasons, today Bumble is making a donation to a humanitarian organisation supporting marginalised women for every first move made on its platform.

“Any moment of challenge that our company faces, we try to make it bigger than ourselves,” said Wolfe Herd. “We want to use any opportunity we have where we may have a moment of heightened exposure to take that back to our users and to have their first move impact another women’s first move.

“I’m so proud of the community we’ve been able to bring together and the notion of women making the first move is no longer taboo, it’s no longer a scarlet letter to have a voice,” she added.

The tech industry is a notoriously difficult place to be a woman. In the UK, last year only nine per cent of funding went to women-led start-ups. As well, a damning piece in the New York Times last year demonstrated the culture of harassment women face in tech.

Despite these issues, Wolfe Herd is determined to keep going and continue to build a community for empowered women through Bumble. What keeps her inspired in difficult times?

“Thinking about the next generation of women. Thinking about the type of world I want to exist if I’m ever lucky to have a daughter one day, or the world the daughters of my friends and siblings will live through.

“It’s about identifying the things that have broken my heart throughout my life and career and building solutions to those,” she said.

Last year, Bumble launched its latest feature, Bumble Bizz to take on LinkedIn. The feature encourages women to seek mentors and new opportunities in their industries.

In technology, Wolfe Herd says she is inspired by the work of Melinda Gates, for inspiring women and girls all over the world. As well, her friend Karlie Kloss, the supermodel who created coding courses to inspire and normalise STEM for young women.

And her words of advice to young women pursuing careers in tech?

“To believe in themselves and chase down their dreams. And to know that what they feel and set out to do, to know that to be right and true and chase it down, no matter how many people tell you no.”

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