Friday Fundings: Bumble, Patreon, and Biofourmis

Bumble Eyes an IPO

Bumble, the popular dating app which helps women make the first move, could be gearing up for a public debut sometime in early 2021. Bumble has over 100 million users around the world and would likely be looking for a valuation somewhere between $6 billion and $8 billion.

The Austin-based company was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, a co-founder of Tinder. Last year, Bumble sold a majority stake to Blackstone Group (BX).

Talks of Bumble’s IPO are still in early stages, and the plans could fall through. However, a number of tech companies are hoping to capitalize on favorable market conditions, and Bumble may be one of them.

Patreon’s Valuation Tops $1 Billion

Patreon Inc, a platform for musicians, writers, and other artists to connect with their fans, secured $90 million in a Series E funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.2 billion.

Through Patreon, creators can get paid by people who want special access to their content. About 200,000 creators and over 6 million of their fans use the service. Patreon’s user numbers have surged during the pandemic. The number of musicians on the platform tripled between March and May. Since concerts, gallery openings, and other arts events were canceled during the pandemic, creators are looking for new ways to earn a steady income.

Patreon is working on expanding internationally and recently opened offices in Berlin and Dublin. The company is also working on creating ways for fans to discover and connect with new artists on the platform. The company will use its fresh funding to work on these, and other projects.

Biofourmis Lands $100 Million

Biofourmis, a digital therapeutics company, recently raised $100 million. The new round of funding announced on Wednesday was led by SoftBank (SFTBY) (which is also a SoFi investor). The goal of the Boston-based company is to be able to predict diseases before they pop up in a patient’s life, so medical professionals have a better chance of treating the illness preemptively.

Right now, Biofourmis offers wearable devices like biosensors to patients. It also has an app which can report symptoms. For medical professionals, Biofourmis can help with remote monitoring. Since May of last year, more than 20 large pharma companies and hospitals in the United States have jumped on board with Biofourmis. Due to COVID-19, applications like remote monitoring have risen in popularity for the medical world.

The company plans to use the new funding to produce and fine-tune its products, and to capture more market share. So far Biofourmis is focused on the US, but they will also be looking at expanding into the Asian Pacific region.

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