Bumble makes its Wall Street debut

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Bumble, best known for its female-focused dating app, will begin trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the stock ticker “BMBL”.

Bumble priced its stock at $ 43 on Wednesday night, up from the originally proposed price range of $ 28 to $ 30, signaling strong investor demand in what is a proven market for new public tech companies.

The company was founded in 2014 by Wolfe Herd, who started her career with another dating service, Tinder. She initially wanted to create a female-focused social network before landing on the concept of a female-focused dating app. Bumble requires women looking for heterosexual matches to take the first step, believing that this feature would allow women to make their own choices.

The idea grew. Bumble, headquartered in Austin, has become a household name even as it competes in a crowded dating apps market. It now also offers services beyond dating, including professional networking (Bumble Bizz) and finding new friends (Bumble BFF).

Investment firm Blackstone bought a majority stake in Bumble’s parent company from Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev in 2019. The parent company also includes Badoo, a popular digital dating service outside of the United States founded by Andreev in 2006. The Blackstone deal valued Bumble, the parent company, at $ 3 billion.

Bumble’s public offering comes on the heels of multiple successful tech IPOs. Airbnb and DoorDash have each been soaring in their recent public market debuts and continue to trade well above their IPO prices.

Unlike many other tech companies, most of Bumble’s board is made up of women. At 31, Wolfe Herd becomes one of the youngest female CEOs in technology to make her company public, following in the footsteps of Katrina Lake, the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, who was 34 when she saw her company go public.

Sarah Kunst, CEO of start-up venture capital firm Cleo Capital and former senior adviser to Bumble, told CNN Business that Wolfe Herd’s IPO is a meaningful example for other founders who don’t fit into what a “ tech entrepreneur ” is. looks typical.

Wolfe Herd’s success story is based on the idea that “you can only start a business credibly if you have several prestigious degrees [and] “the right experience,” said Kunst. “She played this game on her own terms.”

She sued Tinder, who founded Bumble and now, at age 30, is the CEO of a $ 3 billion dating empire
Wolfe Herd has worked to differentiate her business – from publicly slamming and blocking a misogynist to banning gun photos and flagging obscene images sent via direct messages on the app. Late last month, the company updated its terms and conditions to ban body shaming. She has also used her profile to deepen her weight in issues related to women and the digital world. In 2019, she and Bumble successfully argued for a new law in Texas banning digital sexual harassment.

The fact that Wolfe Herd has gotten Bumble thus far is significant in the greater push to diversify the venture capital and startup ecosystem so that men – and white men in particular – aren’t the only major beneficiaries and gatekeepers.

“Whitney and the Bumble IPO heralds that arrival,” said Pam Kostka, CEO of diversity-in-tech nonprofit All Raise. “A different kind of wealth will be created by this particular IPO and what will people do with that wealth?”

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