Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd steps down as CEO, company’s valuation down 80% since IPO

Dating app company Bumble announced on Tuesday that its founder Whitney Wolfe Herd would be stepping down from her role as chief executive, passing the reins to experienced tech and business executive Lidiane Jones.

Wolfe Herd is the second key executive to depart from Bumble this year, following President Tariq Shaukat, who stepped down after three years in the role. As a result of this news, Bumble’s shares experienced a drastic 7% decline on Monday, hitting a record low for the company.

Jones currently serves as the CEO of Slack, which is owned by Salesforce. Prior to this role, she held significant business positions at Microsoft for over 12 years. Starting on January 2, Jones will assume the CEO position at Bumble, while Wolfe Herd will continue as the executive chair.

“Lidiane’s expertise and track record in product and technology is exceptional,” Wolfe Herd said in a press release as the company looks to foray into AI to boost its product offerings.

The news comes almost three years after dating app startup Bumble made an initial public offering (IPO) debut at a valuation of  $14 billion. At the time, the IPO made the 31-year-old founder Wolfe Herd one of the tech billionaires. Bumble has since lost over 80% of its market value since its IPO debut in February 2021. The stock is currently trading around $13 as of the time of writing compared to $76 three years ago.

Founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, a co-founder of rival app Tinder, Bumble is a dating app that brings dating, friend-finding, and career-building into a single social networking platform. The app works in three modes: dating, friend-finding, and networking.

Whitney left Tinder in 2014 to start Bumble. Its vision, according to its website, is to “envision a world free of misogyny, where all relationships are equal. We know — we’ve got our work cut out for us. But we believe in our mission and know that we can change the culture.”