Equity Mates Investing Podcast · Oct 18, 2026 · 41m · 32m saved
With Owen Rask, Founder of Rask
Bumble has agreed to be bought by Ithaca Holdings for US$1.3 billion, about 92% below its 2021 listing peak of more than $14 billion, Bryce and Ren said as they opened the latest Equity Mates Investing Podcast.
The obvious reading is that dating apps are finished. The numbers say something narrower: Match Group is down 74% over five years with shrinking revenue, while Grindr is up 49% since its 2022 listing.
"So, people who are calling the death of the dating app, it might be the death of the heterosexual dating app." — Ren
Bryce and Ren, who co-host the show and both own Eli Lilly shares, also tested their own Lilly thesis against a listener's question, and Owen Rask closed the episode by reviewing a community member's portfolio.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 41 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 7 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Only about 1 in 10 US singles under 30 use a dating app, and Grindr is the one app still growing fast
CoreWeave bonds issued four months ago trade at 78 cents on the dollar, with yields near 15%
Neo-cloud interest bills have to keep pace with revenue, Ren's lesson from the 2000 dot-com peak
Sell when the thesis breaks, not when only the price falls
Eli Lilly holds about 61% of the US market to Novo Nordisk's 39%
At about 40 times earnings, Lilly's price implies only 9 to 11% profit growth, well below its actual pace
Bryce and Owen Rask both expect a newborn's geared ETF to beat his father's portfolio over 18 years
1. Singles Are Leaving the Apps
Bumble has turned an annual profit only once, with help from one-off accounting items. Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, Match.com and a long list of smaller apps such as Plenty of Fish, is down 74% over five years. Grindr is the exception, with quarterly revenue growth of 29% to 38% over the last three quarters.
Bryce cites survey data showing most young US singles have dropped the apps
"Only about one in 10 US single people under 30s currently use a dating app. And that's because they're actually going offline into the real world." — Bryce
The good news is that people are meeting in person. Eventbrite singles events have doubled since 2022, and Strava has become a dating venue.
"New run clubs on Strava have nearly quadrupled in 2025 alone... one in five Gen Z users had gone on a date with someone they met through exercise." — Ren
The bad news is a growing group, especially young men, who are not forming relationships at all.
