Bumble debuts on Wall Street

Bumble debuts on Wall Street

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Bumble, best known for its women-centric dating app, will begin trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday under the stock market “BMBL”.

Bumble cost its shares at $ 43 on Wednesday night, compared to the original price of between $ 28 and $ 30, indicating strong demand from investors in a high market for new public technology companies.

The company was founded in 2014 by Wolfe Herd, who started her career at another dating service, Tinder. She initially started creating a female social network before coming up with the concept of a female-focused app. Bumble requires women looking for heterosexual matches to take the first step, with the idea that this feature will enable women to make their own choices.

The idea took hold. Bumble, headquartered in Austin, has become a household name, even though it competes in a busy dating market. It now also offers services outside of dating, including professional networking (Bumble Bizz) and finding new friends (Bumble BFF).

Investment firm Blackstone bought a majority stake in Bumble’s parent company of Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev in 2019. The parent company also includes Badoo, a popular digital data service outside the United States, founded in 2006 by Andreev. The Blackstone deal appreciated Bumble, the parent. company, at $ 3 billion.

Bumble’s public offering comes on the heels of several successful technological IPOs. Airbnb and DoorDash have each soared in their recent debut in the public market and are still trading above their IPO prices.

Unlike many other technology companies, the majority of Bumble’s board consists of women. At 31, Wolfe Herd becomes one of the youngest female executives in technology to announce her company, following in the footsteps of Katrina Lake, the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, who was 34 when she saw her company through his IPO .

Sarah Kunst, managing director of the early stages of venture capital firm Cleo Capital and a former Bumble senior adviser, told CNN Business that Wolfe Herd’s IPO is a meaningful example for other founders who are not in the form of a ‘ technical entrepreneur ‘does not fit. typically looks like.

Wolfe Herd’s success story supports the idea that ‘you can only start a business credibly if you have several prestigious degrees [and] all the right experience, “Art said. She played this game on her own terms. ”

She sued Tinder, founded Bumble and is now the CEO of a $ 3 billion dating empire at 30
Wolfe Herd worked to differentiate her company – from the fact that a misogynistic user is publicly beaten and blocked, to the ban on gun photos and the flag of obscene images sent by direct messages on his app. Late last month, the company updated its terms and conditions to ban body shaming. She also used her profile to shed her weight on issues concerning women and the digital world. In 2019, she and Bumble successfully pleaded for a new Texas law banning digital sexual harassment.

The fact that Wolfe Herd got Bumble up to this point is important in the greater effort to diversify the venture capital and the start-up ecosystem so that men – and specifically white men – are not the only big beneficiaries and gatekeepers.

“Whitney and the Bumble IPO is an announcement of the coming forward,” said Pam Kostka, CEO of nonprofit All Raise. “There’s going to be a different kind of wealth creation than this particular IPO and what will people do with that wealth?”

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