REUTERS: Shares of Bumble Inc, backed by Blackstone Group Inc, soared more than 76per cent in their stock market debut on Thursday, fetching a US$14 billion valuation for the operator of the dating app where women make the first move.
Stellar first-day trading gains such as these are likely to fuel criticism from some venture capital investors, including Benchmark's Bill Gurley, who has argued that investment banks underprice offerings so their investor clients can win big in first trades. Austin, Texas-based Bumble was founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, a co-founder of rival app Tinder, which she left earlier that year.In 2019, Blackstone paid about US$3 billion to acquire a majority stake in MagicLab, which owned the Bumble and Badoo apps at the time, from founder Andrey Andreev. Wolfe Herd was named Bumble's chief executive officer after the deal.