Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd joined the growing class of billionaires in the tech industry after the explosive initial public offering of his dating app.
Bumble’s stock price rose 63 percent to $ 70.31 at the company’s debut on the market on Thursday, making it the newest darling of the technology to soar on its first day of trading.
Wolfe Herd, who founded Bumble in 2014, owns about 21.5 million shares of the company that were worth more than $ 1.5 billion at Thursday’s closing price.
Its stake of approximately 12% has made Wolfe Herd, 31, the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, according to Forbes. His fortune could grow even more on Friday – Bumble’s shares rose about 4.7 percent, to $ 73.60 in the pre-market, starting at 8:56 am.
Bumble – whose largest shareholder is the private equity firm Blackstone – closed its first day of trading well above the $ 43 per share price it had set for the $ 2.2 billion IPO.
The Austin-based company is the latest in a series of major technology companies to capitalize on a heated IPO market. Vacation rental giant Airbnb saw its stock price more than double in its December debut, after DoorDash’s shares rose 92% on its first trading day.
Wolfe Herd founded Bumble after breaking up with Tinder, which she co-founded and ended up suing for sexual harassment. Tinder denied any wrongdoing and the case was later closed, according to Forbes.
Like Tinder, Bumble is free, but makes money from premium subscriptions and in-app purchases. The defining feature of the app is that only women can start chats with male partners. (If you are looking for a same-sex partner, anyone can get in touch first.)
Bumble’s market value of $ 7.7 billion makes it much smaller than Tinder’s owner Match Group, which is worth about $ 46 billion.