Companies do not have a net worth. People have a net worth. Companies have a valuation, and a valuation only exists when somebody actually agrees to pay a price.
The last time anybody set a price on Coffee Meets Bagel was May 2018. Everything published since is somebody’s guess, and the most repeated guess, $150 million, falls apart the moment you put it next to the company’s own revenue data.
Here is what is documented, what is not, and why the famous story about turning down Mark Cuban is less settled than the internet has decided.
The $150 million figure, and the number that contradicts it
The claim circulating everywhere, including as motivational content on social media, is that Coffee Meets Bagel is now worth about $150 million on annual revenue of roughly $36 million. It is used as proof that the founders were right to turn Cuban down.
Neither number has a named source. The revenue figure in particular does not survive a basic check.
| Measurement | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Claimed annual revenue | $25 to $36 million | Unattributed, repeated widely |
| Lifetime iOS app revenue | Over $10 million, in total, ever | Sensor Tower |
| Best single month of app revenue | About $500,000, September 2025 | Sensor Tower |
| Weakest month in the same period | About $10,000, June 2024 | Sensor Tower |
Read those rows together. A company said to earn $36 million a year has made just over $10 million on iOS across its entire existence, and its best single month of app revenue annualises to roughly $6 million.
For both to be true, the overwhelming majority of the money would have to come from Android and the web, which is not how a US-focused dating app with that user base works.
One more figure to retire while we are here. A $600 million valuation also circulates. Even the data sites repeating it describe it as implausible.
What the company has actually raised
| Round | Date | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | September 2012 | $600,000 | Lightbank, and a co-founder of Match.com |
| Series A | February 2015 | $7.8 million | DCM Ventures |
| Series B | May 2018 | $12 million | Atami Capital |
Those three rounds come to $20.4 million. The total you will see quoted is about $31 million, which does not match the disclosed rounds and which nobody appears to have questioned.
Either there are undisclosed rounds, or the widely repeated total is wrong. We cannot tell you which, only that the sum does not add up.
What matters more is the date. The last disclosed round was May 2018. More than eight years have passed without a priced transaction, and a valuation with nothing behind it is just a number somebody typed.
The Cuban offer, told properly
The founders, the sisters Arum, Dawoon and Soo Kang, appeared on the sixth season of Shark Tank in January 2015.
They asked for $500,000 for 5% of the company. That is an asking valuation of $10 million. Mark Cuban instead offered $30 million for the entire business, which was the largest offer the programme had made to that point. They said no.
The story is usually told as a vindication. It is not that simple, and the reason is a point worth understanding for any private company.
Cuban’s $30 million was a cash offer for the whole thing, in 2015, with no conditions on a future sale. A $150 million valuation in 2026 is a number nobody has committed money to. The first is money. The second is an opinion. Comparing them directly is the same mistake made when a founder’s stake is multiplied by a headline valuation, which is the trap covered in detail on our Vineeta Singh page.
That said, the founders have one argument that carries real weight, and it is not the valuation.
The part that genuinely counts in their favour
In late 2025, co-founder Arum Kang said the company had been profitable since 2020 and described it as highly profitable.
In the dating app business that is close to remarkable. The sector spent the same period burning money at scale, and a small, independent, profitable app that has outlasted most of its venture-funded competition is a genuine achievement, regardless of what anybody thinks it would fetch.
She also gave figures for the product: more than 200 million matches and more than 10 million dates as of late 2025.
A profitable company you still own outright is worth something that a 2015 buyout would not have given them. That is a much better defence of the decision than a made-up valuation, and nobody making the argument bothers with it.
The direction of travel
Profitable is not the same as growing, and the trend data points one way.
- Headcount. Down roughly 32% from its December 2021 peak. The company was at around 30 employees in late 2022
- Downloads. Between 40,000 and 60,000 a month across 2024 and 2025, per Sensor Tower
- Web traffic. Between 90,000 and 206,000 monthly visits in early 2026, per Similarweb
- Brand searches. Down about 18% year on year
- Registered users. Around 10 million, which counts everyone who ever signed up rather than anyone currently using it
That registered users figure deserves a flag of its own. Ten million registrations across fourteen years is not ten million users, and every page quoting it as though it were is inflating the company by an order of magnitude.
Two incidents nobody factors in
Valuing a consumer app means valuing its trust, and there are two events on the record.
In February 2019 the service was breached, exposing 6,174,513 accounts. That is not a rounded estimate, it is the recorded figure.
In August 2023 the app went down for several days. The company confirmed the outage was caused by a malicious actor deleting company data. For a dating service, a multi-day blackout caused by an attacker is a serious event, and it was reported at the time by the technology press.
Neither appears in any of the articles confidently valuing the business at $150 million.
Timeline
- September 2012. Founded by the Kang sisters. Raises $600,000 in seed funding from Lightbank and a Match.com co-founder
- January 2015. Appears on Shark Tank season six, asking $500,000 for 5%. Mark Cuban offers $30 million for the company. The founders decline
- February 2015. Raises a $7.8 million Series A from DCM Ventures
- May 2018. Raises a $12 million Series B from Atami Capital. This is the last disclosed round
- February 2019. A data breach exposes 6,174,513 accounts
- 2020. The company becomes profitable, according to co-founder Arum Kang
- December 2021. Headcount peaks
- Late 2022. Around 30 employees remain
- August 2023. A malicious actor deletes company data, taking the app offline for several days
- September 2025. Best recorded month of app revenue, at about $500,000
- Late 2025. Arum Kang reports more than 200 million matches, more than 10 million dates, and says the company has been profitable since 2020
So what is it worth
Nobody knows, including, in any precise sense, the people who own it.
What can be said is that it is a small, independent, apparently profitable dating app with roughly thirty staff, declining downloads, declining brand interest and no priced funding event since 2018. Businesses like that are usually valued on a multiple of profit, and the profit figure has never been published.
A $150 million valuation would require this company to be earning several times what its own app store data shows. It might be worth a great deal less than that and still be an excellent business. Those two statements are not in conflict, which is the thing the genre never manages to hold in its head at once.
Frequently asked questions
What is Coffee Meets Bagel worth in 2026?
There is no verified valuation. The last priced funding round was in May 2018. The widely quoted $150 million figure has no named source and is hard to square with the company’s recorded app revenue.
How much has Coffee Meets Bagel raised?
The three disclosed rounds total $20.4 million: $600,000 in 2012, $7.8 million in 2015 and $12 million in 2018. The commonly quoted total of about $31 million does not match those figures.
Did Coffee Meets Bagel really turn down $30 million?
Yes. Mark Cuban offered $30 million for the whole company on Shark Tank in January 2015, after the founders had asked for $500,000 for 5%. They declined.
Is Coffee Meets Bagel profitable?
Co-founder Arum Kang said in late 2025 that it had been profitable since 2020 and called it highly profitable. No profit figure has ever been published.
Is the app still running?
Yes. It still records tens of thousands of downloads a month, though both downloads and brand search interest have been falling.
A last thought
The Coffee Meets Bagel story gets retold as a parable about backing yourself, and the punchline is always a valuation nobody can source.
The actual story is better and quieter. Three sisters turned down a cash offer, kept their company, survived a breach, survived an attack that took them offline, outlasted most of the funded competition, and got to profit without selling.
They did not need $150 million to have been right. They just needed to still be here, which they are.
Last reviewed 27 October 2026. Figures are drawn from disclosed funding rounds, app analytics providers and the founders’ own public statements. No audited accounts are available. If you have corrections, we will take them.
