Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has joined the growing class of billionaires in the technology industry, following the explosive initial public offering of his dating app.
Bumble’s stock price rose 63% to $ 70.31 on the company’s market debut on Thursday, making it the latest technology to advance on the first day of trading.
Wolfe Herd, who founded Bumble in 2014, owns about 21.5 million shares in the company, which were worth more than $ 1.5 billion at Thursday’s closing price.
The value of his stake of about 12% made Wolfe Herd, 31, the youngest billionaire in the world, made by himself, according to Forbes. Her fortune could rise further on Friday – Bumble shares rose about 4.7 percent to $ 73.60 in premarket trading at 8:56
Bumble – whose largest shareholder is private equity firm Blackstone – closed its first trading day well above the $ 43 billion-per-share IPO price of $ 2.2 billion.
The Austin-based company is the latest in a series of technology-renowned companies to capitalize on a hot IPO market. Holiday rental giant Airbnb saw its share price more than double at the beginning of December, after DoorDash shares rose 92% on the first day of trading.
Wolfe Herd started Bumble after breaking up with Tinder, which he co-founded and eventually sued for sexual harassment. Tinder denied any wrongdoing and the case was later settled, according to Forbes.
Like Tinder, Bumble is free, but it makes money through premium subscriptions and in-app purchases. The defining feature of the application is that only women can initiate chats with male colleagues. (If you are looking for a same-sex match, any of them can contact you first.)
Bumble’s market value of $ 7.7 billion makes it much smaller than the owner of the Tinder Match Group, which is worth about $ 46 billion.