(Reuters) – Bumble Inc CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd’s participation in the female-centric dating app operator was worth nearly $ 2 billion, with shares rising for the second consecutive day after a highly successful debut on Thursday .
Bumble, backed by Blackstone Group Inc, was valued at $ 15.69 billion on Friday, with its stock price nearly doubling from the initial public offering price of $ 43 per share, reinforcing the insatiable appetite of the investor for technology stocks in a heated American stock market.
Wolfe Herd owns 21.5 million shares of Bumble, which equates to an 11.6% stake, regulatory documents showed.
With the IPO blockbuster, Wolfe Herd, 31, became the youngest female CEO to go public on a company by ringing the bell at Bumble’s Austin office with her one-year-old son by her side.
The approach of women first differentiates Bumble in a competitive online dating market, Wolfe Herd told Reuters on Thursday.
Bumble users are more likely to pay for premium offers to have a deeper level of connection or a different approach to connection, said Wolfe Herd, listing the offer anonymously as a popular resource for people to browse others’ profiles. people while they are anonymous.
Wolfe Herd, who majored in International Studies at Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University, launched the Bumble app in 2014.
Wolfe Herd is also a co-founder of the rival app Tinder, which she later sued, claiming that her co-founders subjected her to sexual harassment. Tinder’s father, Match Group Inc, who denied the charges, paid about $ 1 million to settle the dispute.
Bumble’s shares rose 13.5% in Friday afternoon trading, after rising by up to 20.6%, to $ 84.8 at the start of the session.
Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Anil D’Silva