Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble had ended the day, last Thursday, with a net worth of $1.5 billion based on the Bumble stock closing at $70.55. She has become the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire on top of already being the youngest female CEO ever to take a company public in the U.S.
Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014 not long after suing Tinder, her previous employer, for sexual harassment. The lawsuit involved her former employer and boyfriend, Justin Mateen, who allegedly sent threats, derogatory texts and stripped her of her cofounder title at Tinder. However, Tinder denied all wrongdoings and was later settled confidentially.
After leaving Tinder, Wolfe Herd connected with Andrey Andreev, a London-based Russian billionaire who was already successfully in the dating app sector for the European and Latin American markets. With his assistance they created Bumble, which was meant for only women to be able to make the first move. This became the differentiating factor against Tinder and other online dating apps.
Bumble is the second well-known dating app to have gone public, after Match Group’s 2015 IPO. Match Group, the parent group that owns Tinder and Match.com, had tried to buy Wolfe Herd’s company in 2017 for $450 million, but was denied. Now, at $76 a share early Thursday afternoon, Bumble’s market capitalization is $8.6 billion, while Match Group still holds the lead at $45 billion market capitalization. Although the last few years have been a struggle for Wolfe Herd, Bumble has made quite the buzz on its first day of trading. Wolf tweeted on Thursday:
“Today, @Bumble becomes a public company…This is only possible thanks to the more than 1.7 billion first moves made by brave women on our app—and the pioneering women who paved the way for us in the business world. To everyone who made today possible: Thank you. #BumbleIPO.”