Bumble Deal Keeps Dating App in Austin as Tesla Fans Pack Giga Texas

New details on Bumble’s $1.3 billion take-private lead a quiet weekend in Silicon Hills, along with a Tesla owners’ rally and AI upgrades from a local staffing app.

Austin-based Bumble Inc. will remain headquartered in Austin under new owner Ithaca Holdings, and new reporting on the deal’s terms shows founder Whitney Wolfe Herd will keep a sizable stake in the dating company. Elsewhere, thousands of Tesla owners gathered at Giga Texas as the automaker’s Austin Cybercab fleet grows, and Austin-based Indeed Flex rolled out new artificial intelligence tools for temporary workers. It was a light news weekend for the Austin tech scene.

Bumble: Ithaca founders to lead, Austin HQ stays put

More details emerged over the weekend on Ithaca Holdings’ agreement to acquire Bumble for $6.05 per share in cash, a deal valued at about $1.3 billion. When the deal closes, Ithaca co-founders and co-CEOs Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman will become Bumble’s co-CEOs, according to the company’s Oct. 13 announcement. The price represents a premium of about 138% to Bumble’s unaffected closing share price on Oct. 9.

Wolfe Herd, who returned as CEO in March 2025, will step down but plans to stay “actively involved with Bumble,” she said. She will roll at least 10.9 million Class A shares, roughly half her stake, into the new parent company and cash out the rest, according to a report published Saturday. That report also said the merger agreement includes no “go-shop” period for Bumble to seek rival bids and sets an outside closing date of July 12, 2027.

Bumble said it expects to remain based in Austin as a private company, with offices in London and New York. Shareholders holding a majority of voting power, including affiliates of Wolfe Herd and Blackstone, have already approved the deal by written consent. Closing still requires regulatory approvals. The company had about 580 full-time employees at the end of 2025, and the announcement included no job commitments.

The deal takes one of Austin’s best-known consumer tech brands off the public markets, five years after its 2021 Nasdaq debut.

Tesla: Owners converge on Giga Texas as Cybercab fleet grows

Thousands of Tesla owners, many from out of state, gathered at the company’s Giga Texas factory in southeast Travis County for the X Takeover, a fan event organized around Tesla owners’ clubs from Austin and Silicon Valley, CBS Austin reported Friday. Attendees toured the Cybertruck production line and traded notes on Full Self-Driving software. No new products were announced.

The rally comes as Tesla scales its driverless ride-hailing service in Austin. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Oct. 10 that its Cybercab fleet in Austin had grown from fewer than 40 vehicles to more than 300 in about a month, and Texas registration data showed about 319 Cybercabs and 420 Model Y robotaxis registered, The Motley Fool reported. Tesla has not disclosed how many vehicles operate at once or how many rides they complete.

Tesla executive Ashok Elluswamy has signaled that Dallas will be the next city to get Cybercab service, though no launch date has been set. Federal safety regulators are reviewing allegations that Tesla robotaxis sped through school zones and whether the Cybercab meets vehicle safety standards. Neither review has found wrongdoing.

Indeed Flex: AI tools aim to fill temp shifts faster

Austin-based Indeed Flex, which runs an app that matches workers with temporary shifts, is leaning on AI to speed up hiring, CBS Austin reported. Workers can now opt into an AI screening interview available at any hour, and a machine learning system offers each shift first to the workers best matched by skills and work history. The company also uses two AI agents: Alma, which helps businesses build schedules, and Lexi, which handles worker support.

CEO Novo Constare called traditional temporary staffing “slow, antiquated, and quite opaque.” The company did not disclose user counts or financial details.

Also in Silicon Hills

  • Vereigen Media, an Austin-based demand generation firm, won a Gold award at the 2026 TITAN Business Awards for its human-verified lead service. (GlobeNewswire)
  • Data center rules: Austin’s city manager owes the City Council an update on proposed data center regulations this month, 60 days after the council’s Aug. 27 vote. Binding rules are due by year’s end. (FOX 7 Austin)
  • Catch up: Saturday’s roundup covered Samsung’s $22.84 million Taylor-area community investment and second-fab timeline, Homa’s $5 million seed round and Tesla’s Roadster unveiling. (Silicon Hills News) Friday’s roundup covered ICON’s $200 million Series D, RapidCanvas’ $29 million Series B and Daily Journal’s acquisition of Revir Technologies. (Silicon Hills News)

Only in Austin

Enjoy the Congress Avenue Bridge bats while you can. Most Mexican free-tailed bats that roost under the bridge head south to Mexico around October or November and return in March or April, though about 100,000 stay year-round, according to The Trail Conservancy. At peak season, up to 1.5 million bats live there, the world’s largest urban bat colony. The bats moved in after an early-1980s bridge renovation, and frightened residents wanted them gone. That changed after conservationist Merlin Tuttle moved his organization to Austin in 1986 and began a public awareness campaign. Today the colony eats up to seven tons of insects a night.

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