The Bumble dating app debuted on Wall Street on Thursday, catapulting its CEO to billionaire status and making her one of the few self-made female billionaires.
Bumble, the dating app that requires women in heterosexual matches to take the first step, has priced its stock at $ 43 ahead of Thursday’s trading – higher than the original forecast of $ 28 to $ 30, CNN Business reported. It started trading on Nasdaq under the ticker ‘BMBL’.
The increase was enough to value CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd’s stake at over $ 900 million, pushing her total net worth to over $ 1 billion, Bloomberg News said.
Wolfe Herd held her baby during the small event that marked the official launch of the app on Wall Street.
From Austin, TX ➡️ Times Square, NYC.
Today, @Bommel and @Nasdaq defined the relationship. #NasdaqListed $ BMBL pic.twitter.com/kehYpW0fSc
– Nasdaq (@Nasdaq) February 11, 2021
Wolfe Herd joins the small group of self-made female billionaires who live mainly in Asia and make up less than 5 percent of the world’s 500 largest fortunes, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The 500 richest people in the world won $ 1.8 trillion in 2020, 91 percent of which went to men.
She founded Austin, Texas-based Bumble in 2014 after she left a job at Tinder, which she later sued for sexual harassment in a now-settled case, according to Bloomberg News. She originally wanted to create a female-focused social media platform, but turned to a dating app.
“You don’t have to be one type of person to be successful in the business world or the tech industry,” Wolfe Herd told CNN in an interview. “I’ve really always tried to build what I wish existed, what I wish could improve life for the women I care about and the people I love, and I think it doesn’t always have to be the same path to follow. “
Last year, the Blackstone Group bought a majority stake in Bumble, valuing the company at $ 3 billion.
Wolfe Herd, 31, became one of the youngest female CEOs in technology to make her company public. In the past year, a total of 559 companies went public in the US, of which only three, including Bumble, have female founders.