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.

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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.