Match Group and Bumble Put To Bed All Litigation Claims

Match Group (MTCH) and social-networking platform Bumble have announced that they have reached an agreement to settle all litigation between the two companies.

Additional details of the settlement are not being disclosed, but the companies did reveal that they are pleased with the amicable resolution.

Back in 2018, Tinder-owner Match announced that it was suing Bumble for patent infringement and IP misuse related to its rival’s “card-swipe-based, mutual opt-in premise.”

“Bumble has released at least two features that its co-founders learned of and developed confidentially while at Tinder in violation of confidentiality agreements” the company claimed.

To this Bumble retorted: “We swipe left on your attempted scare tactics, and on these endless games. We swipe left on your assumption that a baseless lawsuit would intimidate us. Given your enduring interest in our company, we expected you to know us a bit better by now.”

Shares in Match Group are trading up 6% year-to-date, and analysts have a cautiously optimistic Moderate Buy consensus on MTCH with 7 recent buy ratings and 6 holds.

With an average analyst price target of $92, analysts see, on average, 5% upside potential from current levels. (See MTCH stock analysis on TipRanks).

Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak recently initiated coverage of Match with a bullish buy rating and $103 price target. “We view MTCH as a must-own structural grower in early innings with dominant market share,” he wrote. “As singles crave human interaction in a post COVID world, we model accelerating 2021 sub growth.”

He sees a long and growing runway for growth given demographic tailwinds and greater adoption of online dating, with 13% subscriber growth over the next five years.