Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and chief executive officer of online dating app Bumble, became the youngest self-made woman billionaire after she took her company public in the United States on Thursday, reported Bloomberg.
Shares of the company soared 67% in its trading debut to $72 (approximately Rs 5,243) at 1.03 pm in New York, valuing 31-year-old Herd at $1.5 billion (approximately Rs 1.09 lakh crore).
“Hopefully this will not be a rare headline,” Herd said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, referring to the uniqueness of Bumble’s women-led management. “Hopefully this will be the norm. It’s the right thing to do, it’s a priority for us and it should be a priority for everyone else.”
Herd started the female-first dating app in 2014 after leaving an executive role at Tinder, which she sued for sexual harassment, reported India Today. In her allegations, she had also mentioned that her former boss and also her boyfriend Justin Mateen had threatened to strip her of her title of being the co-founder of Tinder. The company refuted these allegations and the matter was later settled.
The company is different from other dating apps as it centres around women as they can only make the first move. “The importance of a woman making the first move is not exclusive to the world of dating, romance, or love,” Herd wrote in Bumble’s S-1 filing, according to News18. “It is a powerful shift, giving women confidence and control.”
Herd becoming a self-made billionaire is a rare achievement. Self-made women, mostly from Asia, account for less than 5% of the world’s 500 biggest fortunes, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Self-made men comprise almost two-thirds of the wealth index. Only two companies, besides Bumble, out of the 559 that have gone public in the US in the past 12 months were founded by women.
“This is a huge win,” said Allyson Kapin, general partner at investment firm W Fund and founder of the Women Who Tech network. “Whitney saw an opportunity that wasn’t being addressed for women and based on her expertise she’s made it into this gold mine, not just for her and her team but also her investors.”
Bumble publicly filed its Initial public offering paperwork on January 15. It has 42 million users across Bumble and Badoo, dating-focused social network owned by Bumble, combined.
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