The dating app Bumble debuted on Wall Street on Thursday, catapulting the CEO to billionaire status and making him one of the few self-made billionaire women.
Bumble, the dating app that requires heterosexual women to make the first move, priced its shares at $ 43 before trading on Thursday – higher than the initial forecast of $ 28-30, CNN Business reported. It started trading on the Nasdaq under the “BMBL” checkbox.
The increase was enough to estimate CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd’s share of more than $ 900 million, boosting his global fortune to more than $ 1 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
Wolfe Herd held her baby at the small event that marked the official launch of the app on Wall Street.
From Austin, TX Times️ Times Square, New York.
Today, @Bumble and @Nasdaq defined the relationship. #NasdaqListed: $ BMBL pic.twitter.com/kehYpW0fSc
– Nasdaq (@Nasdaq) February 11, 2021
Wolfe Herd joins the small group of female billionaires, who live mostly in Asia and represent less than 5% of the world’s top 500 fortunes, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The richest 500 people in the world will earn 1.8 trillion dollars in 2020, 91% of which are for men.
She founded Bumble, based in Austin, Texas, in 2014, after leaving a job at Tinder, which she later sued for sexual harassment in a case now settled, according to Bloomberg News. She initially intended to create a women-centered social networking platform, but turned to a dating app.
“You don’t have to be a type of person to find success in business or the technology industry,” Wolfe Herd told CNN in an interview. “I’ve really always tried to build what I want to be, what I want could help improve the lives of the women I care about and the people I love, and I don’t think they should always follow. the same way. “
Last year, Blackstone Group bought a majority stake in Bumble, valuing the company at $ 3 billion.
Wolfe Herd, 31, became one of the youngest women technology CEOs to make the company public. A total of 559 companies have gone public in the US in the last year, only three, including Bumble, with female founders.