Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Bumble fourth quarter 2025 financial results conference call. My name is Elliot, and I'll be your coordinator today. If you would like to register a question during today's event, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to Will Tavares, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us to discuss Bumble's fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. With me today are Bumble's founder and CEO, Whitney Wolf-Herd, and CFO, Kevin Cook. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call today are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and reflect our current expectations based on the beliefs, assumptions, and information currently available to us. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occur after this call. Descriptions of factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in more detail in today's earnings press release and our periodic filings with the SEC. During the call, we also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, or in isolation from, our gap results. Reconciliations to the most comparable gap measures are available in our earnings press release, which is available on the investor relations section of our website at ir.bumble.com. With that, I will turn the call over to Whitney.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We have a lot to cover today. I'd like to recap what has been a very productive first year in our transformation and the excitement building inside Bumble as we work toward our platform and app relaunch in just a few months. I don't want to sugarcoat the challenging process that we are working through, but I am proud of our team for their pace of execution and early accomplishments. Starting with performance, we closed out 2025 with fourth quarter revenue and EBITDA at the high end of our guidance ranges as we continue to emphasize financial discipline, balancing investment in sustainable long-term growth with healthy margins and cash generation. Kevin will provide perspective around the financial strides that we've made in just a moment. Turning to our transformation. The headline today is that we believe that the heavy lift of our quality reset is behind us, and we are full steam ahead on product innovation. Before getting into the details, I want to set context. When I returned as CEO about a year ago, I came back with a clear focus to rebuild this company from the inside out and return to what originally made Bumble so successful. What people come to Bumble for is to find love and make in-person connections, and they favor us for a simple but powerful reason. We build trust with women. We believe that when women feel safe, confident, and intentional about who they meet, the entire ecosystem works better. You get healthier interactions, a more balanced member base, and better outcomes for everyone. Our goal is to continue to lead in this area and to build the most woman-centric dating product in the market across features, design, and outcomes, one that solves real pain points women face in dating today. In 2025, we accomplished our most important goals, putting trust, authenticity, and member outcomes first. We also are running the company with sharper disciplines so we can invest where it matters most and execute faster. We knew that doing this the right way would create near-term pressure, and it did. The choices we made were intentional. We began by raising standards across the platform and fundamentally changing how we approach acquisition. Performance marketing was reduced by well over 80% year over year. That was a deliberate shift away from volume-based acquisition and towards higher intent, organically driven growth as we returned to our roots of brand and organic marketing. Despite raising the bar on new members and dramatically limiting marketing, Bumble app registrations and active users have stabilized. We proved two things through this exercise. First, demand for what we offer, the promise of human connection, relationships, and potentially love is strong and enduring. Second, we believe the Bumble brand has tremendous affinity with our target audience. As we tighten trust and authenticity standards, user metrics behaved as expected. Although trust and safety is a competitive advantage and the work never ceases, we believe Q4 marked the completion of our quality reset. As we move into early 2026, trends suggest the rate of sequential member-based decline is slowing, consistent with the expectation we shared with you on our last call. And the quality reset is working as designed. We've talked on previous calls about our internal framework for improving the mix of our member base by emphasizing approved members and removing accounts that were not here for the right reasons. Members who are truly here to find love and connection will be more engaged. And that's what we are in fact seeing as our mix improves. Engagement quality is improving significantly with Bumble app week one retention in the US up materially and monthly retention trending higher as well. These progress points demonstrate that the member experience is getting better due to the nature of the quality reset even before we innovate the product. At the same time, we've improved the quality of our monetization base. Pair penetration for Bumble subscribers has increased and the portion of payers choosing subscriptions has risen from 80 to 89 percent as we reduced certain promotional activities related to consumables. We anticipate that this shift reflects stronger intent and a greater alignment between value delivered and value paid for. Taken together, these improvements likely signal that we are building a healthier funnel from registration to engagement to monetization. The data shows that our foundation is now stronger with a higher quality, higher intent member base and a more sustainable payer mix. But this essential foundational work can only take us so far. To fully recover and return to growth, we must focus on product and technology innovation, which is where our efforts are now. Since the beginning of the year, I have personally spent 90% of my days with our tech and product teams, reimagining what finding love looks like in the era of AI. We are re-architecting the entire Bumble experience from start to finish, and I am taking a very hands-on role in shaping the core user experience across onboarding, profiles, and matching. As we rebuild the experience, one thing is clear. We cannot deliver the innovations we are creating on our legacy tech stack. That is why we're building the new Bumble experience on our cloud-native technology stack built with AI productivity at its core. The launch is targeted for Q2 this year. What we're calling TechSack 2.0 is not just a backend upgrade. It is a fully new platform that will transform how we build and ship product. We expect it to allow us to deliver member experience improvements more quickly and intelligently, deepen personalization, support how our monetization model evolves over time, and serve as the foundation for more potential product launches in the future. These are all things that we have been unable to execute effectively on with the current tech stack, a fact that has limited our ability to deliver the innovations that our members should expect from us and compete better with other offerings in the category. Given this significant tech deck, the fact that we've been able to execute a major member-based reset without being able to deliver the innovation that we need is a testament to the enduring strength of our core product and our brand. This makes me excited to show what we can do once our new platform is live. the platform development is currently being executed by our newly consolidated product and technology organization led by our chief product and technology officer vivek saggy and supported by the engineering led innovation hub that we've built in often over the last six to nine months the buzz in the building is strong and our renewed energy is already accelerating our pace we're working more tightly across teams putting member satisfaction and product at the center of our daily work. I'm building with clearer accountability and execution. Our new tech stack will enable us to deliver an experience built around people, not just profiles. Daters across the industry are dissatisfied with being reduced to images and potentially dismissed with a swipe. Bumble 2.0 introduces a chapter-based structure designed to help members tell their stories more authentically and understand one another more deeply. This will enable them to see matches with stronger compatibility signals, build confidence in the experience, and get to meaningful in-real-life dates more quickly. Before the rollout of the new Bumble date, we are continuing to deliver updates on our Legacy 1.0 tech stack that improve outcomes and address the most consistent pain points that we hear from members. We are addressing global member feedback, particularly women's feedback. One example is a new Really Into You tab, which we began testing last month. While results are early, they have been positive, showcasing the importance of strong signals of intent. We also rolled out tests of profile guidance and suggested dates. Profile Bumble guidance delivers personalized, actionable feedback on bios and prompts, guiding members step-by-step to help truly reflect who they are. Suggested date is a new feature designed to make expressing date intent effortless and to get people offline as quickly and confidently as possible. Beyond the major updates that we're making to Bumble date in the near term, we are also actively infusing AI into the core Bumble experience and recommendations algorithm. Our objective is not simply to layer AI features onto the product, but to build the underlying system that reflects how people actually meet, connect, and form relationships, so AI can operate within that structure. Done right, AI helps the network function better by prioritizing fewer, more relevant matches over volume, combating swipe fatigue and moving members more efficiently towards real world connection. What differentiates our approach is not just the AI technology, but the depth of the proprietary data that we have built over more than a decade. AI on its own is neither a moat or disruptor to online dating. Its effectiveness depends on high quality, scaled interaction data, and the hardest part of building a successful dating platform is earning trust and building that member base at scale. We believe that we have one of the largest and most nuanced data sets of real human connection in the world, leaving us uniquely positioned to apply AI in ways that are more personalized and effective than any potential new entrants. To that point, we've talked in the past about building a standalone AI experience. What we learned in the development process is that the best way to launch a standalone product is to start with enabling it on pre-existing data sets. So we formed a team to focus on a standalone product feature, we call it B, that is integrated in the core member base to accelerate development and iteration. B is designed to become a personal dating assistant and matchmaker, learning members' values, relationship goals, communication style, lifestyle, and dating intentions through private conversations, then using those insights to identify mutual compatibility to find better dates with a higher degree of confidence and relevance. Importantly, this work is grounded in our longstanding commitment to privacy and trust, ensuring members remain in control of their data. A pilot of B's core functionality is testing internally and will be launched in beta soon. In addition to reimagining the dating experience, we continue to expand how people connect through Bumble BFF. We recently launched an important update that makes groups discoverable, allowing members to find and join communities based on shared interests. Early response has been encouraging, with a 17% increase in the number of active groups in just two weeks since launch. Looking ahead, we have a series of product updates planned as fast follows, including the introduction of functionality designed to bring members together in curated, real-world settings. And these are not just BFF initiatives. Ultimately, they extend into dating, and we see an exciting opportunity around group dating as we reimagine the Bumble experience. While the millennial dating experience was more one-to-one, Gen Z searches for love differently, and group socializing is a big part of that. The event capabilities that we're introducing take us firmly in this direction. They create more pathways from digital interaction to in-person connection and can further strengthen engagement. We see significant potential here, both in deepening engagement within BFF and in creating new on-ramps into BumbleDate as members move fluidly between friendship, community, and romantic connection within our broader ecosystem. Our goal with all of this work is to transform people's expectations of what a dating application is. We plan to deliver a product people actively choose and want to use, one that reestablishes Bumble as the most culturally relevant and trusted dating brand. I am highly focused on realigning with the cultural zeitgeist and being the dating app of choice for our core audience, which is women and men, ages 21 to 35 predominantly. To get there, we're doubling down on our unique playbook of hyperlocal, organic marketing and community-driven growth, rather than broad, undifferentiated spend, to really reposition Bumble to center of dating culture. It's already working. We are seeing Bumble's woman-first positioning strengthen as awareness among single women in the U.S. has increased, and Bumble continues to lead in net favorability among scaled dating apps among women. And we continue to see that influencers and other relevant people in culture want to work with Bumble despite a highly competitive environment. This is the equity that we are building as we bring Bumble back to the center of dating culture. We are energized by the innovation underway and the clarity of the roadmap ahead. The products that we are bringing to the market this year represent a meaningful evolution for Bumble, and we believe that they will redefine how people experience connection on and off of our platform. Brand and member experience are central to our foundation, and equally so is our operating health. We've strengthened our business on both fronts. Over the past year, we have added key leaders and resized and reshaped our organization to increase execution velocity and the pace of innovation across product, engineering, and go-to market. We've improved focus, aligned teams more tightly to outcomes, and accelerated progress on our turnaround roadmap. We've gained efficiency across the company to fund targeted investment in our strategy, and we've streamlined and focused our marketing approach on reinforcing what our brand stands for and emphasizing organic high quality acquisition channels. We expect the moves we've made will help preserve our attractive cash flow profile. To summarize, 2025 was a successful year in executing our transformation. We believe we are well on our way to rebuilding Bumble around what has always made us different, listening to women and delivering a trusted high quality experience that drives real-life connection and love. We are clear-eyed about the work ahead, but confident in our ability to unlock a step change in the member experience beginning in 2026, which in turn should enable us to monetize more effectively over time. By resetting the foundation of the business, how we acquire members, how we engage them, and how we monetize, We believe we have positioned the company to grow again as we restore bubble to what has always been at the heart of our success. With that, I will turn it over to Kevin to walk through the financials. Thank you again.

Thank you, Whitney, and hello, everyone. In the fourth quarter, we delivered results at the high end of our guidance ranges. Revenue reflected the expected impact of our trust and safety initiatives and the deliberate reset of the member base while profitability and cash flow demonstrated the underlying resilience of our model over the past year we've managed the business with discipline balancing targeted investment and product with careful cost control and a focus on strengthening our financial foundation i'll walk through our quarterly and full year results before turning to our outlook unless otherwise noted my comments are on a non-gap basis and comparisons are year-over-year. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $224 million, compared to $262 million in the year-ago period. Bumble app revenue was $181 million, compared to $212 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was $72 million, representing a margin of 32 percent, compared to $73 million, and 28 percent in the prior year period. The quarter reflected what we believe was the most acute top of funnel pressure associated with our quality reset actions. For the full year, total revenue was $966 million compared to $1.07 billion in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $314 million, representing a margin of 32%, compared to $304 million and 28% in the prior year. Selling and marketing expense was $161 million, representing 17% of revenue, compared to $259 million, or 24% of revenue, reflecting a more focused and efficient approach to member acquisition, with greater emphasis on targeted and organic channels. We expect to maintain disciplined marketing spend in 2026, while incrementally increasing investment to support the rollout of our new products and in select member acquisition. Product development expense was $96 million, representing 10% of revenue, compared to $84 million, or 8% of revenue, in 2024, consistent with our plans to increase investment in core product innovation, AI capabilities, and platform modernization. General and administrative expense was $115 million, representing 12% of revenue, compared to $108 million, or 10% of revenue, reflecting disciplined cost management as we navigate the reset, offset by indirect taxes. We believe this balanced approach, containing overhead while prioritizing product investment, supports both operational efficiency and long-term value creation. I'll now turn to the balance sheet and cash flows. For the full year, we generated $250 million in operating cash flow, $239 million of which converted into free cash flow. As discussed on our last call, we were taking active steps to optimize our capital structure. We completed the buyout of all our outstanding TRA liabilities in the fourth quarter for $186 million in cash. We ended 2025 with $176 million of cash and cash equivalents, and have continued to generate substantial cash flow throughout the first quarter. Similarly, we are currently in discussions to refinance our existing debt obligations due January 2027, totaling $588 million as of December 31st. Consistent with our intention to deleverage the business, we repaid $25 million of our current term loan B in August 2025, in addition to eliminating the full TRA liability from the balance sheet, we expect to repay a portion of our outstanding debt and refinance the balance. Turning to guidance, we believe the most challenging portion of the quality reset is behind us, and we have turned from adding incremental friction at the top of our member acquisition funnel to improving the experience with product innovation. We expect a lag between these product improvements and our reported financial performance metrics. As such, the sequential stabilization in our business metrics, including active users and payers, have not yet been reflected in our year-over-year revenue growth. For the first quarter of 2026, we expect total revenue in the range of $209 to $213 million, including Bumble app revenue of $171 to $174 million and adjusted EBITDA of 76 to 80 million representing a margin of approximately 37 percent as we move through 2026 we expect our revenue headwinds to moderate as the impacts of recent trends in our operating metrics flow through the financials improvements in revenue will be primarily a function of new product adoption and further retention pair penetration and average revenue for paying user gains based on enhanced functionality as well as incremental monetization opportunities. An important contributor to our margin performance will be the continued implementation of alternatives to in-app purchases in the U.S. In the fourth quarter, direct payments contributed approximately one percentage point of year-over-year gross margin expansion, and we currently expect the benefits to increase through 2026, as we are already seeing increased adoption in January and February. We believe this shift in billing methods meaningfully enhances the long-term profitability of the business. In closing, the actions we've taken over the past year have been made to support our financial and operational foundation in light of our transformation work. We are entering this next phase supported by a highly efficient cash generative business model and a cost structure better aligned to our strategic priorities. Operator, we'll now take questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unneeded locally. First question comes from Nathan Feather with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question and congrats on the quarter. I guess first, thinking through, talking through a pretty ambitious product roadmap over the course of 2026, I guess first, when you say registrations and active users have stabilized, You know, as we look out over the course of the next year, what's the path to get those to start to accelerate and really improve? And of all of these kinds of changes you're talking about, help us think through the timing of when that might potentially happen. And then on the profitability side, once you even a margin is showing a really nice step up quarter over quarter, can we think through what are the puts and takes that are leading to that improvement?

Thanks, Nathan, for the question. So I'll take the first part of the question and we'll talk about returning to user growth. So I think it's important to just re-emphasize that we just undertook something incredibly difficult without any product innovation to support us. So let me just explain what I mean by that. We just underwent a membership overhaul essentially where we went in and we said quality is the quality and safety and authenticity, which are the three most important things to women in dating, particularly when they date online. And we are going to go and take this on while we're still essentially under construction, because we're still operating on our legacy tech stack. So the fact that we were able to have registrations and active members stabilize during a transformation with little product innovation to support is actually quite remarkable, which is exciting for the next phase of this, which we said in the prepared remarks, which is rolling out, to your point, a very ambitious but very doable 2026 product roadmap. Let's talk about that for a second. So once 2.0 back-end infrastructure is up and running, and once we have migrated the 1.0 system to the 2.0 system, innovation becomes a lot more seamless, a lot quicker, a lot more kind of the volume at which we can innovate becomes so much more plentiful than what we've seen in the past and we have a very long roadmap essentially covering what I said in the prepared remarks of solving women's pain points but also delivering these really incredible innovative features tools and ways of connecting that we believe will accelerate these cohorts of of opportunities so I think it's also important to note the oldest Gen Z right now or 28 years old so we are just entering this peak intentional dating window and when you look at our roadmap it's just extremely focused on re-engaging this next generation who are stepping into intentional dating um and so uh you know on the timing front i think what we said in our prepared remarks is is exactly the way to think about things this starts as soon as 2.0 is in flight and it will be a very consistent drumbeat of innovation and we are super inspired committed

and we are building um with with you know innovation at the helm so i hope that answers the question and i will kick the profitability piece over to you kevin thanks whitney hey nathan um so on profitability for q1 uh you know we we continue to be committed to operating discipline So we're pleased to see continued adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. I will say Q1 is probably slightly elevated. We are expecting, as Whitney's highlighted, and you heard from our prepared remarks, beginning in Q2, we are expecting to launch significant new product in market. So you'll see a slight increase in marketing to support new product innovation and some very specific product marketing around new enhancements to product. And you'll also see product development costs increase mid-year slightly in order to support 2.1, 2.2 and the fast follows that Whitney was describing earlier. I do believe that structurally our margin profile is higher than it has been historically. We are much more efficient today than the business has been in the past. We're not, you know, guiding the year here, obviously, but we do see the opportunity for sustained, very high adjusted EBITDA margin throughout the year. And, obviously, to the extent that we inflect growth in the business, there is enormous operating leverage in the model. Helpful. Thank you.

We now turn to Shweta Kajuria with Wolf Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you for taking my questions. First is on the product revamp. So, Whitney, how are you thinking about measuring progress? And what will be some of your milestones as you track that, you know, the revamp is going well in how you measure it? And is there something different that you plan to share with us in terms of metrics, whether it is either top of the funnel or some internal metrics that you guys are following that would help us get a sense of how it's going? That's one, because we may not see the impact on monetization just yet, but if engagement is improving, that would be a good sign. The second is on investment on the tech re-platforming. So is there additional, and it doesn't sound like it, but just want to clarify, the backend changes that you are making to make your platform better from legacy to the new tech re-platforming, is there additional investments that you are expecting, or how should we think about that? thank you.

Shweta, nice to hear from you and thanks for the questions. So, you know, by the way, can you hear me? Yes. Oh, sorry about that. We were having challenges with the microphone. So, the way we think about outcomes is, or KPIs, how we measure this, is really about member outcomes. So, what we've started to share with you today, as you saw, that, you know, the The deeper funnel improvements are really what measure the durability of this business and how it is performing for members. If you have really good top of funnel results, but negative bottom of funnel results, you do not have a healthy consumer business. And this industry and this product is inherently dependent on the outcomes that we drive for our members. So, the way we are thinking about 2.0 outcomes are, you know, not dissimilar from the way we think about it right now, but ultimately, it is, are our members satisfied? Are they getting what they came for, which is high-quality dates with people they actually want to meet? Are those dates safe? Are they reliable? And are they converting into what they came to look for? This is precisely how you drive top of funnel, because when people come, have a good experience, they go on great dates, they tell their friends, and that is the flywheel. And so that is everything we are focused on. And in order to arrive at that outcome, we had to really enhance the way in which people discover one another. We had to focus on quality. Quality in this instance is about helping people show up better. How do we get you to basically showcase yourself in a way that is actually driving curiosity from members so that you can create matches and go out on great dates? So you will see this come to life in 2.0, but ultimately it's all about the outcomes and the success that our members find.

All right. And hello, Suheda. You had a question, I think, about the tech stack and sort of the investment required on the tech stack. So recognize 2025 was an investment year from a product development point of view, and we're continuing with that investment in 2026. Over the course of 2025, we built a new, you know, sort of modern AI-oriented engineering organization, primarily in Austin, Texas. And so much of that investment is behind us, including both on product and on the platform. And you'll see some additional investment throughout 2026, of course. The things to recognize, there's a lot of efficiency in our engineering efforts currently. We're benefiting substantially from the application of AI, not surprisingly, in our product development. And in terms of appreciating sort of the level of investment required platform and product, there is some infrastructure costs based on the existing set of offerings, primarily data center costs, that we continue to maintain. while at the same time we're building this, you know, cloud-native AI-led tech stack that you've heard a lot about already. And so there's some duplication of costs for, you know, a portion of 2026 in that respect. And then you'll see a continued, you know, longer term, you'll see a continued modest level of product development expense increase tied to revenue just to continue to produce the sort of innovation that we're expecting. But you should see some efficiency, you know, some operating leverage in that line once we've got the duplicate costs taken out of the system.

Okay. Thanks, Sydney. Thanks, Helen.

We now turn to Steven Zhu with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Moore Roble in for Steven. Thank you for taking my question. I appreciate the color on direct billing, And I was just curious if you could frame how big of a potential this could be for you all this year, given how much of a contributor this is to the EBITDA guide and understand there are some tradeoffs between efficiency and causing user friction. And then a second question, how – should we expect the new product initiatives to be rolled out globally across the Bumble-affiliated apps? And additionally, do you see any opportunities with respect to international expansion?

Kevin, why don't I – why don't I take the direct billing question? So, you're right. So we saw in Q4 a full percentage point of gross margin expansion as a result of alternative billing. In Q4, we implemented our Apple Pay program. And what we've seen is a very, very rapid adoption by users of Apple Pay. In fact, as of today, quarter to date, we've already got more than half of our U.S. iOS payments being made through Apple Pay. So it is a very substantial um cost benefit or improvement to um uh to gross margin we believe it is uh mostly sustainable based on our understanding of the um you know of the of the various um uh sort of uh cases and settlements to date there as you know there's uh some changes that are occurring uh that are occurring in that regard. So we haven't built all of the long-term benefit into our model. And I mean, clearly for Q1, we're far enough into the quarter that we have great confidence in our adjusted EBITDA guide there. But as I think about the year, we have hedged that number slightly. we have not seen by the way any friction we when we built plans we did think that there could be some impact on revenue there has not been to date and we're about three months into into the program and we have noted too that there seems to be an improvement in renewals as a consequence of using these alternative billing methods which was um somewhat unexpected uh but obviously welcome uh and on the

the other portion of the question so the back-end infrastructure what we're calling tech 2.0 that will be applied to the entire portfolio with the exception of bff because that lives on the Geneva infrastructure. As you'll recall, we acquired Geneva largely due to how great their tech and their team and that infrastructure is that they had, which was super enabled for groups and beyond one-to-one, which is going to be a huge part of our focus in 2026 and beyond. We really believe, not to go on too much of a departure, but we really believe that one of the largest opportunities for us is bringing people together in groups of people. So really taking this beyond one-to-one, that is inherently how a lot of the Gen Z cohort chooses to socialize and meet and date. So just to put a pin in this, tech will be rolling out to all products that are on legacy infrastructure and will be enabled globally. So that will be replacing any legacy systems.

Thank you. We now turn to Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe two that build on some of the answers so far and just trying to take it a little bit further. When you look at the current competitive landscape of sort of investments against growth and investments against product that you see across the dating horizon, How are you thinking about positioning yourself competitively in a 2.0 world of where you think the biggest opportunity for both incremental growth of new users or reengagement of existing users or legacy users sits for the company when you think about that competitive landscape? And then second question would be, and maybe it's qualitative more than quantitative at this point, but how are you thinking about the incremental margin structure of the company in a fully deployed 2.0 world relative to 1.0 on the other side of the sort of investment cycle? Thanks so much.

Thanks so much, Eric, for the question. I will take the first part and then I'll make one comment on long-term investment strategy and then I'll kick it to Kevin for the particulars. So this is really an important topic. First and foremost, let's just back up and actually look at what makes Bumble so unique and sets us apart inherently from any of our competitors. And the most important part of our differentiator is that it's been core to us since I started this company in 2014, and that is our obsessive focus on women. We have become a trusted women's brand. This stands true even today on, quite frankly, somewhat outdated technology and product offerings. we are not up to par with our product right now, but we will be. And so our brand is so resonant and our brand carries us in such a way that this is such a strong driver for us in 2.0. And when you see the rollout of 2.0, and I know I mentioned this in the prepared remarks, but I have been in every pixel, every meeting so deep in the details, reimagining what would the dream woman's app look like in 2026 to re-engage women, both Gen Z and millennial alike, and Gen X, frankly, because this is a highly monetizable cohort. They're also equally looking for love and connection. How could we reimagine this and innovate our way to be the preferred dating platform and connection platform for women? So I just want to reemphasize that women and the trust that we have with women and the authentic design system of putting women first beyond just a function of who goes first or who doesn't, this is inherently what sets us apart. The second thing is I am a firm believer that the future is beyond one-to-one in any sense of exclusivity. Do I believe that there is still a huge demand for intentional one-to-one dating? Absolutely. Please do not misunderstand me there. I think we have not seen our potential through with one-to-one dating, and we're very exciting about that opportunity globally. But I think what's really exciting is using Bumble's brand and leveraging this brilliant new technology infrastructure to really go beyond just this small dynamic of one person seeing one person connecting with one person, bringing people together in groups of people, whether that's a small group, a mid-sized group, or even a large group, and getting people in real life, IRL. This is such an opportunity for us. And we know that we have a right to win because of the strength and the favorability that our brand brings. So I think that leads to my final point, which is the number one thing that women want when it comes to dating, particularly online, is trust and safety. This has been at the core of our DNA for years. We have been a leader in the category, even passing laws to drive safer initiatives for women online and we are going to be doubling down on this in every sense of the word we are going to be getting out there much more broadly i'm going to be putting myself out there for a 2.0 relaunch in a way i've never been before and we are going to basically reignite this trusted safe woman's first dating product and brand so that we can bring people together in the real world as quickly and efficiently as possible yeah hey eric on the on the operating cost point um uh with respect to the

the you know the the updated platform i think the way to think about it is um you know we're operating from these very very old data centers to today when we um cease reliance on the data center and have a true cloud platform operating costs will be substantially lower um with um with respect to uh innovation innovation will become much less expensive more rapid we'll be able to iterate um you know in a way that isn't possible today that should unlock It's a separate question, but it should unlock some incremental monetization of revenue opportunity as well. I would say with the modern platform and what is contemplated in terms of new product introduction, you will see a greater reliance on AI. You'll see an offset, perhaps, in token costs associated there. there, but there should be a net benefit to operating margin from our move to the modern platform. Great.

We now turn to Corey Carpenter with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good to talk again. I wanted to ask what you alluded to, the chapter-based structure, curious if you could elaborate kind of on your vision there and then the role that you see the swipe playing on the 2.0 platform, and then just bigger picture, once 2.0 is out, how radical of a change will users see, you know, and how quickly of a change will they see in the app once you have Hey, Corey.

It's great to chat again. It's been a while. So, yes, let's talk about the chapter-based profile. So we basically took the stance of the last decade has sort of reduced people down to profiles, and this has happened across the Internet. And ultimately, dating only works when you really understand the story of someone. This is where chemistry and connection really happens. It's the intersection of someone going from just a stranger that you dismiss to someone you're genuinely interested in. And so as we reimagined the profile, we thought, why not bring people to life as a story? Because everyone has a story to tell. And this is where people become interesting. So what you will see in this chapter-based approach is it won't be just your standard kind of flat, non-interesting profile that everybody has become so used to across platforms. This is really an opportunity to capture the essence of who you are. So that you go from being Corey of whatever town you live in with whatever age you have listed in just some photo, you turn into who you truly are, and this will ignite curiosity from the people that are exposed to your story. And so this is also a gateway to allow people to interact more dynamically. So today on the current Bumble app, you can either broadly swipe right or broadly swipe left, which is a no, on someone's profile. So you're kind of saying like, yep, Corey's in or no, Corey's out, just in one swift go. And this is actually reducing the options for people to actually get better matches. So what we will be introducing are more dynamic ways for somebody to express interest in your story, rather profile, however you want to call it. And this is going to drive more dynamic engagement. It should spark better conversation, and it should ultimately drive better KPIs across the board, like engagement, chances to get better conversations going. you will also see us take a much more deliberate approach to getting people offline versus just in what people kind of refer to as dead-end chat zones. So we're really trying to chip away at member complaints of, hey, listen, you know, I've got all these chats that just sit or they expire, these matches that never went anywhere. So we're really trying to get people to understand who each other are and get them out in the real world as confidently, quickly, and safely as possible. So that's part one. The second part of your question is a really important one, which is how big of a change will this be when members, you know, start interacting with 2.0? So this has been absolutely top of mind for the product team. What we are going to do is we are going to piece by piece expose members in very controlled groups to different portions of the new 2.0 experience. We are going to rigorously test every single portion of the experience, make sure that no KPIs are damaged, that monetization is strong, that we do not accidentally hurt anything. Once we have tested, and if we needed to, iterated, and once we feel that this is safe, we will start to roll it out slowly and slowly in very controlled market expansion. Once we get to a certain place where we feel that this is good, you know, everything's going in the direction we want, that is when it will start to kind of migrate to the entire world. You can expect that to be a multi-week thing, not a multi-month thing. And as far as our confidence in getting 2.0 out the door in our projected timeline, we are very confident. Teams and systems are all in a great place, and we're very excited about this next chapter.

Awesome. Thank you, Eddie.

We now turn to Robert Kulbrith with Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. I just wanted to ask a follow-up on Corey's question. Just to go, you know, I think there was a second part there about the swipe mechanic. Is that still going to be a core part of the user experience? And then just as you move into these more detailed chapter-oriented profiles, two questions there. What's the strategy for getting existing users to fill those out and engage with the sort of more fulsome profile? And then secondarily, is there any tradeoff or impact on paid user conversion versus maybe user retention as you make some of those changes? Does it slow down people's consumption of profiles, which has, I think, historically been a way that you've driven paid user conversion.

Thanks so much for the question. So the good news is we've thought about all of these things top to bottom, left to right, for a very long time. And we have teams making sure that revenue and monetization mechanics have been thought through and that there is a do-no-harm approach to revenue and monetization with the 2.0 experience. So I want you to take some consolation in that, that we're not going to just roll something out that topples our monetization strategy. We're being very, very modest and very conservative with that. In fact, we actually have set up and positioned the new profile to have, you know, new gateway opportunities for better monetization over time. Okay, so we'll start there. Let's go back to the swipe piece. So the way we're phrasing this internally is, what does life look like beyond the swipe? And that doesn't necessarily mean this binary situation of like, it's either there or it's not. It's much more nuanced than that. So we are testing several iterations of engaging opportunities of how you would, before I go there, the swipe is the way you get to a match. So if the match is the goal, the swipe is the mechanism. So what we're doing is we're testing several mechanisms to get you to a wanted and mutual match as quickly, efficiently, and in the most compatible way as possible. So the mechanism of swiping may dynamically shift. And in certain markets, we may test with no swipe. In other markets, we may preserve the swipe. We have multi-mechanism tests that we are going to be running to make sure that we do what the members want the most, that serves our members best, that is in line with the KPIs that suggest we're getting people to the best outcomes, and of course, that does not disrupt revenue and preserve the strength of the revenue business, the revenue side of the business. So I hope that has answered the question, but happy to take a follow-up if needed.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Oh, sorry. There was a second part of that. How do we get people to fill in the more robust parts of the onboarding? I think that was your question. So this has been a long game. Okay. So we've been playing a very long game here. Let me just be clear. When I came back in a year ago, I knew that this is where we would be this year, but I needed a year to get to the quality transformation. So now let's back up. What was a huge part of that quality transformation overhaul. It was trying to drive more what we called approved members. What constitutes as an approved member? Someone who has adequate information in their profile, enough intel that we have to work with to drive compatibility on the back end, enough photos, selfie verification, and hopefully ID verification. So we've already been planting the seed for this moment for the last several months by trying to drive people to fill in more information so we've made a ton of progress there so it's not a cold start situation where all of a sudden we have a brand new you know uh profile and we have we have no information the other thing that we're doing is we're being really thoughtful in how what and where um we really ask you to fill in more information so it's not going to feel punitive. It's not going to feel stressful or exhausting. It's actually going to be dynamic and fun. And then on another note, as we talked about with Bea, our AI assistant, down the road, we are going to be able to get so much robust information about who you are, what you're looking for, and really understand your story through more engaging mechanisms, whether that's voice or typing but it's in a conversational format like an AI tool right like an AI product but this is going to be the long game of how we get more dynamic information so you know it's a step-by-step plan but the good news is we've already made a lot of progress as another reminder

if you'd like to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad now ladies and gentlemen we have no further questions so this concludes our Q&A and today's conference call We'd like to thank you for your participation, you may now just connect your lines.