Andrey Andreev Helped Get Bumble off the Ground — Then He Got Hit With Allegations

Back in September 2014, Tinder settled a lawsuit filed by co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd for an undisclosed amount of money. According to NBC News, Herd accused her former business and romantic partner, Justin Mateen, of sending her a "barrage of horrendously sexist, racist, and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails, and text messages."

She also alleged that Mateen removed her title as co-founder because of her gender.

Herd, who did not sign a non-compete clause, went on to create Bumble thanks to the suggestions made by a Russian billionaire named Andrey Andreev. As the founder and CEO of Badoo, the largest dating site in Europe, Andreev told Herd that her women-focused social networking website would make more sense as a dating app.

It turns out he was right. A few years later, Andreev was hit with some allegations of his own. Here's what we know about the controversy.

The Bumble offices are located in both Austin, Texas, and London, where Andreev lives, but some other business locations have also popped up regarding Andreev's other companies. According to documents obtained by Forbes, Andreev allegedly did some tax evasion when it came to where his corporations were based.

He has denied these allegations. The controversy doesn't stop there.

As Badoo was growing, it began to earn quite a reputation for wild parties that were allegedly bordering on illegal. One former employee told Forbes they saw photographs from one gathering where Badoo employees were literally and figuratively hanging out.

"Everyone was naked and doing lines of coke," they recalled, "and they were sending these photos over the internal email system."

Evidently, these parties were a regular occurrence. An old private Facebook group comprised of former Badoo employees reportedly makes references to these hedonistic times.

"I wonder if current Badoo’rs know of the afterparties with prostitues [sic] and cocaine in all their offices," mused one group member. "I miss the days of Ketamine infused afterparties in Badoo," chimed in another.

Andreev claims to have never attended one of these parties and also said he had no knowledge of them.

Jessica Powell, Badoo’s chief marketing officer from 2011 to 2012, told Forbes in an email that she was "told to act pretty for investors and make job candidates ‘horny’ to work for Badoo."

She continued, "I was once even asked to give a designer candidate a massage." Powell refused.

Apparently, a woman disagreeing with Andreev would result in the billionaire referring to her as b---h in Russian.

"When female staff spoke up, their concerns were ignored or minimized," said Powell. Four former employees told the outlet about a video they were aware of, in which another employee was given oral sex from a sex worker. One of those employees actually saw that video.

Andreev has also been accused of being racist following the launch of Badoo in the United States. A former high-level executive said Andreev complained about the number of darker-skinned people on the app, claiming it lowered the value of their product.

"Andrey was always making it clear that white was better," said the executive. There were other allegations of sexual harassment from one employee to another, all of which resulted in the alleged offender being able to return to work.

Herd said she never witnessed Andreev engage in any behavior like the ones described by former employees. Four months after the Forbes piece was published, CNN reported that Andreev was selling his majority stake in MagicLab to Blackstone.

Both Bumble and Badoo were owned by MagicLab.