Bustle was founded by Bryan Goldberg in 2013. Previously, Goldberg co-founded the website Bleacher Report with a single million-dollar investment. He claimed that "women in their 20s have nothing to read on the Internet." Bustle was launched with $6.5 million in backing from Seed and Series A funding rounds.

It surpassed 10 million monthly unique visitors in July 2014, placing it ahead of rival women-oriented sites such as Refinery, Rookie and xoJane; it had the second greatest number of unique visitors after Gawker's Jezebel.

By 2015, Bustle had 46 full-time editorial staff and launched the parenting sister site Romper. In September 2016, Bustle launched a redesign using the company's $11.5 million series D funding round. At that time, the site had over 70 full-time editors and 250 contract contributors who posted more than 200 articles daily.