One hour before
Whitney Wolf-Heard, founder of the Bumble dating app
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The market value of the dating app “Bumble” – which is best known for giving women the lead in identifying potential partners – rose to more than $ 13 billion after the offering of its shares.
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Thanks to the app’s performance on Wall Street, the 31-year-old founder of Whitney Wolf-Heard has become a rare self-made billionaire.
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Bumble, which also owns Badoo, is one of fewer than a dozen US companies offering shares under female leadership.
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The company’s shares were offered at the rate of 43 dollars per share, with a total value of more than 8 billion.
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But with the start of trading on Thursday, the share price jumped to more than $ 76, and the total value of the company rose to $ 13 billion.
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“The first step”
Image Released, Reuters
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Wolf-Heard was inspired by her frustration with the old standards of dating
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Heard launched Bumble in Texas in 2014, with support from Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev, founder of the European dating site Badoo.
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She says she was inspired by the idea of setting up a platform for women to make the “first step” from her frustration over the old gender norms that govern dating.
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And unlike most dating apps, women can only make first contact with the right men. And when dating two people of the same sex, either of them can make the first contact.
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“I know firsthand how asymmetric relationships negatively affect all walks of life. I want to change that,” Wolf-Heard wrote to investors before the launch began.
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Heard is the youngest woman to lead a company to go public in the United States, and she also co-founded Tinder Dating, but left the company alleging sexual harassment.
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Match Group (the parent company of Tinder) denied the allegations and attempted to acquire Bumble, unsuccessfully, and had to pay $ 1 million to settle the dispute.
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Bumble and Badoo has been managed by Wolf Heard since 2019, when Andreev sold his shares in the companies to investment giant Blackstone.
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The number of users of the two applications reaches 40 million people, of whom more than 2.4 million subscribers pay subscription fees.
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Image Released, Reuters
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The market value of the Bumble app increased to $ 13 billion when its shares were floated
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The impact of the epidemic
Bumble, whose apps are available in more than 150 countries, says it is ready to grow, noting the growing number of singles around the world and the increasing reliance on online dating, with indications that users are more willing to pay the subscription fee.
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The company is also expanding into several areas, such as business networking.
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But despite the slight increase in the use of Bumble, the Corona virus epidemic has hurt the company, which is earning its profits mainly from subscriptions and in-app purchases.
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In 2019, revenues jumped more than 35% and profits came to $ 68.6 million.
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However, during the first nine months of 2020, the growth rate decreased to about 15%, and a loss of $ 116 million was recorded.
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In recent months, investors have shown a strong bias towards newer stocks, which has given companies such as Airbnb and Dash high ratings early in their IPO.
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