Bumble operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo.
Gabby Jones/Bloomberg
Dating-app operator Bumble made its much-anticipated public-markets debut with shares soaring as much as 85% in its first day of trading.
Four other companies are also scheduled to begin trading today. Signify Health, a healthcare platform; Apria, which offers home healthcare equipment; and medical-device company Bioventus are also expected to make their debuts Thursday. LoanDepot, which sells mortgage products, is also opening for trading.
Shares of Bumble opened early Thursday afternoon at $76 and hit a high of $79.60. The stock recently changed hands at $76.57, up 78%.
The strong performance came after Bumble delivered the day’s biggest deal when it sold 50 million shares at $43 each, raising $2.2 billion. It had initially filed to sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30 each. It boosted its offering earlier this week to 45 million shares at $37 to $39 each. Bumble is expected to trade Thursday on the Nasdaq under the symbol BMBL. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are underwriters on the deal.
CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd founded Bumble in 2014. The start-up calls itself a “women-first” dating app because it allows women to make the first move. Women, once they match with someone, have 24 hours to start a conversation with their “target.”
Bumble operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo. More than 40 million users visit the apps each month to connect with new people. Bumble had 12.3 million monthly active users as of Sept. 30, while Badoo had 28.4 million monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower data.
Blackstone Group (ticker: BX) acquired a majority stake in Bumble in November 2019 at a $3 billion valuation. Blackstone will have 82.5% of combined voting power in Bumble after the IPO. Herd will have 14.4%, according to the prospectus.
Write to Luisa Beltran at [email protected]
