With friendship apps continuing to gain popularity, Bumble announced on Wednesday the relaunch of its BFF app. The revamped app is a direct response to a trend of younger generations seeking to expand their social circles beyond traditional one-on-one matching. The app is built on the technology of Geneva, the community-focused social platform Bumble acquired last year. With this move, the Geneva app will be shutting down, a decision that follows Bumble’s disclosure to investors in Q2 2025 that Geneva had not generated any revenue.
Existing Geneva members will automatically be upgraded to the new BFF without losing any of their groups or messages. The app will continue to offer one-on-one matching and private direct messaging, allowing users to swipe through profiles and chat individually. However, the main focus of the new app will be a “Groups” tab, which allows users to engage in chat rooms, plan hangouts with new friends, and use an in-app calendar to create and track upcoming events. The company says the feature is designed for communities of all sizes, from small groups to thousands of members. While the Groups tab is now live for creating and joining groups, the discovery function to find new communities will not be available until February 2026.
A Strategic Shift in a Growing Market
The relaunch comes at a time when there has been a surge of new apps designed for finding friendships, such as Clockout, Clyx, and Timeleft, among others. While BFF has been a market presence for longer than many of these emerging apps, this relaunch is a clear effort to remain competitive. The strategy also reflects a shift in user behavior; the company reports that 47% of young adults want more friends to engage in activities with, and a similar percentage is looking for an online platform to build a community in their local areas.
This heightened focus on the social aspect has been part of Bumble’s plan for some time. Former CEO Lidiane Jones said in late 2023 that the company would “accelerate a bolder strategy for Bumble For Friends, one that will focus on building equitable and safe friendships across communities of people with similar interests that want real-life connections.” The revamped app launches as Bumble faces financial difficulties, with the company experiencing a 7.6% decrease in revenue in the second quarter.
Author’s Opinion
This relaunch is a necessary strategic evolution for Bumble, and a clever way to leverage an acquisition that wasn’t performing financially. By moving beyond its traditional one-on-one matching, Bumble is adapting to a market where users want to build communities, not just find individual friends. The decision to integrate Geneva, a pre-existing community platform, into the BFF app is a smart move that gives the company a new purpose and a clear path forward in a competitive and rapidly changing social landscape. This could be a defining moment for Bumble, allowing it to solidify its position as a leader in the friendship app space and potentially open up new avenues for revenue and user engagement.
Featured image credit: Good Faces Agency via Unsplash
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