NEW YORK - Bumble is cutting about one-third of its workforce after a recent executive shake-up as the online dating app company seeks to overhaul its app to revive slowing user growth.

It will eliminate about 350 roles globally, it said on Feb 27 while reporting quarterly results.

The cuts will help centralise engineering and product teams in fewer locations and accelerate decision-making so the company can prioritise artificial intelligence and safety features, chief executive officer Lidiane Jones said in a call with analysts.

Bumble had more than 950 full-time employees at the end of 2022, of whom about 770 are located outside the United States, according to a separate filing.

It is undergoing an organisational shift after founder Whitney Wolfe Herd said in November she was stepping down as CEO and transitioning into the role of executive chair.

Ms Jones, who joined from Salesforce’s Slack Technologies in January, named four new C-suite executives at Bumble, including two from her former organisation.

The new team will oversee a major overhaul of the dating app in the second quarter, its first in two years, to create stronger appeal to younger users, she said.

The company wants to revive slowing payer growth, which it has seen since late 2021, as the numerous product features it introduced in the past 18 months have slowed overall app performance and cluttered user experience, she added.

Ms Jones said the population of active users is undergoing a “generational transition that rightfully expects more” from their dating experiences.

“We have a lot of users today that love the paradigm of online dating – swiping and discovery and searching,” she added.

“But there’s also a set of users that want more flexibility to be able to experience and discover people in a more organic and natural way.”
BLOOMBERG