Whitney Wolf Herd became the youngest woman ever to take a company public last year, when her female-focused dating app Bumble debuted on the Nasdaq exchange in February 2021. The stock unexpectedly surged upon its listing—shares initially valued at $43 jumped to $76 on its opening day, valuing the company at $13 billion and boosting Wolf Herd’s net worth to approximately $1.5 billion thanks to her 21 percent stake in the company. Despite struggling to hold on to its IPO momentum—Bumble stock tumbled 26 percent, and Wolf Herd’s net worth fell by approximately $200 million following the company’s 2021 third quarter earnings report—Bumble isn’t backing away from the global online dating market, which is expected to grow at a 13 percent compound annual growth rate to reach nearly $10 billion by 2025. In fact, even as spooked investors sent Bumble’s shares down to an all-time low, the company’s 2021 Q3 financials (the most recent available at the time of publication) were already improving—swinging from an $84 million net loss in 2020 to a $302 million net profit in 2021. And Wolf Herd remains bullish about the online dating space; Bumble made its first-ever acquisition in February 2022, buying the French dating app Fruitz.
