Bumble’s billionaire CEO takes baby to Nasdaq opening

Whitney Wolfe Herd becomes youngest woman to take a company public in US

The founder and chief executive of the dating app Bumble has become the youngest woman to take a company public in the US – and she took her son with her to the Nasdaq opening.

With one-year-old Bobby Lee “Bo” Herd II on her hip, 31-year-old self-made billionaire Whitney Wolfe Herd rang the opening bell for the American stock exchange from her firm’s Austin, Texas headquarters on Thursday.

“This is what leadership looks like,” reads the caption of a video of the moment posted on Bumble’s Instagram account.

More than 550 companies have gone public in the US in the last year and just three, including Bumble, were founded by women.

Ms Wolfe Herd, who founded the dating app that requires women to make the first move in 2014, wrote on Twitter: “This is only possible thanks to the more than 1.7 billion first moves made by brave women on our app – and the pioneering women who paved the way for us in the business world.”

Bumble soared to a value of more than $13bn (£9.4bn) after shares jumped more than 76 per cent in their stock market debut.

Shares in the firm opened at $76 on the Nasdaq, well above its initial public offering price of $43 per share.

Bumble’s two major apps, Bumble and Badoo, attract more than 40 million monthly active users worldwide.

The Bumble app generates revenue mostly from premium subscriptions, and the firm reported $376.6m in revenue in the first nine months of 2020, according to filings.