Shares of dating app Bumble soared in its IPO on Thursday, turning its 31-year-old CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd into the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire. Her nearly 12% stake in the company was worth $1.6 billion as of 12:40 p.m. EST on Thursday.
Bumble stock opened at $76, much higher than its initial IPO price of $43 per share. The company made its debut hours after the markets opened on Thursday.
According to Bumble’s prospectus, Wolfe Herd owns 21.54 million shares, equivalent to 11.6% of the company. In addition to being the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, she is also the youngest female CEO ever to take a company public in the U.S.
Bumble is the second big dating app to go public, after Match.com parent Match Group’s 2015 IPO. Match Group tried to buy Wolfe Herd’s company in 2017 for $450 million. At $76 a share early Thursday afternoon, Bumble’s market capitalization is $8.6 billion. Match Group, which also owns dating app Tinder, has a $45 billion market capitalization.
Read the full profile on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2021/02/11/bumble-founder-whitney-wolfe-herds-fortune-rockets-past-1-billion-as-dating-app-goes-public/?sh=6dc5a94f578d
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