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Whitney Wolfe Herd

Founder of Bumble and co-founder of Tinder.

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Whitney Wolfe Herd is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Tinder and later founded Bumble.[1] She was born on July 1, 1989 in Salt Lake City, Utah.[1][2] When Bumble went public in 2021, Wolfe Herd, at age 31, became the youngest woman to lead a U.S. IPO and the world's youngest female billionaire.[3][4]

Life and work

She then launched a clothing line called Tender Heart with Aufdenkamp.[5][6] In 2012, she joined Cardify, a startup at Hatch Labs, and later helped develop Tinder.[7] She resigned from Tinder in April 2014 and received a settlement of more than $1 million from her sexual harassment lawsuit.[8][9] Badoo founder Andrey Andreev encouraged her to create a dating app, and she moved to Austin, Texas in December 2014 to work on Bumble.[10][11]

In February 2021, Bumble went public, and Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman to lead an IPO in the United States.[4] At 20 years old, Wolfe Herd and celebrity stylist Patrick Aufdenkamp created the Help Us Project, a non-profit that sold bamboo tote bags to support regions harmed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[5][6] Photographs of celebrities like Rachel Zoe and Nicole Richie carrying the bags brought them national media attention.[5][6] Wolfe Herd was appointed Tinder's vice president of marketing before its launch, and she is recognized for driving the app's early growth on college campuses.[12]

After departing Tinder, Wolfe Herd began developing ideas for a female-only social network that she initially named Merci.[13] Bumble announced in January 2025 that Wolfe Herd would resume the CEO position around mid-March.[14]

What the cited sources add

The same article reports that Wolfe initially wanted to build a positive social platform "somewhere between Snapchat and Instagram" before creating Bumble.[9] The Los Angeles Business Journal states that Bumble had seen 100,000 downloads by January 2015.[11] Elle's 2016 article reports that Bumble racked up 3 million users in its first 14 months and that Sequoia Capital invested $30 million.[15] The Daily Campus article from 2010 describes Wolfe's Tender Heart clothing line as featuring seven pieces for Spring 2011, made in Nepal.[6]

The same article notes that Wolfe made Tender Heart available exclusively to SMU students at a trunk show.[6]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Guillen Gilthorpe, "Texas entrepreneur, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd celebrates 30th birthday amid company rumors", Houston Chronicle, 2019-07-10; "Whitney Wolfe is Bringing Feminism to Your Phone", ATX Woman, 2016-04-01; Charlotte Alter/Austin, "How Whitney Wolfe Herd Turned a Vision of a Better Internet Into a Billion-Dollar Brand", March 19, 2021; "How I Built This", NPR, October 16, 2017 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Whitney Wolfe is Bringing Feminism to Your Phone", Austin Woman Magazine, 2016-04-01; Amanda FitzSimons, "Whitney Wolfe Helped Women Score Dates. Now She Wants to Get Them Their Dream Job", ELLE, 2017-11-27 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mousinho, "How Whitney Wolfe Herd became the world's youngest female self-made billionaire", Management Today; "Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd becomes the youngest woman to take a company public", Fortune; Laporte, "Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd on making Nasdaq history and breaking barriers for women CEOs", Fast Company, 11 February 2021 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Bumble: Female-founded dating app tops $13bn in market debut", BBC News, 2021-02-11; "The tech billionaire who is putting women first", BBC News, April 7, 2021; Au-Yeung, "Bumble Cofounder Becomes World's Youngest Self-Made Woman Billionaire, Thanks To IPO", Forbes; Mousinho, "How Whitney Wolfe Herd became the world's youngest female self-made billionaire", Management Today; "Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd becomes the youngest woman to take a company public", Fortune; Laporte, "Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd on making Nasdaq history and en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hilary Hirschfeld, "SMU senior Whitney Wolfe launches second business, clothing line Tender Heart", Daily Campus, November 3, 2010; "Meet Bumble chief executive Whitney Wolfe", The Washington Post, October 23, 2015; Hilary Hirschfeld, "SMU senior Whitney Wolfe launches second business, clothing line Tender Heart", Daily Campus, November 3, 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Hilary Hirschfeld, "SMU senior Whitney Wolfe launches second business, clothing line Tender Heart", Daily Campus, November 3, 2010. facts only, no text reused. smudailycampus.com
  7. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Josie Ensor, "Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe: 'The word 'feminist' seemed to put guys off, but now I realise, who cares?'", Telegraph, May 23, 2015; Melissah Yang, "Whitney Wolfe Says Goodbye Tinder, Hello Bumble", Los Angeles Business Journal, January 29, 2015; Shontell, "What It's Like To Found A $750 Million Startup, Go Through A Sexual-Harassment Lawsuit, And Start All Over By Age 25", Business Insider (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Story of Whitney Wolfe Vs. Tinder", July 9, 2014; Todd C. Frankel, "Whitney Wolfe, founder of dating app Bumble, has had quite the year. She just can't discuss parts of it.", The Washington Post, December 2, 2015; Hannah Ellis-Petersen, "WLTM Bumble – A dating app where women call the shots", The Guardian, April 12, 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Hannah Ellis-Petersen, "WLTM Bumble – A dating app where women call the shots", The Guardian, April 12, 2015. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  10. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kosoff, "Report: Ousted Tinder Cofounder Settled Her Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Against The Company For 'Just Over $1 Million'", Business Insider, November 4, 2014; Garcia-Navarro, "Can Whitney Wolfe Herd Make Us Love Dating Apps Again", The New York Times, May 10, 2025; Shontell, "What It's Like To Found A $750 Million Startup, Go Through A Sexual-Harassment Lawsuit, And Start All Over By Age 25", Business Insider, January 27, 2015; "How Whitney Wolfe Herd Changed the Dating Game", January 18, 2018; Todd C. Frankel, "Whitney Wolfe, f en.wikipedia.org
  11. Melissah Yang, "Whitney Wolfe Says Goodbye Tinder, Hello Bumble", Los Angeles Business Journal, January 29, 2015. facts only, no text reused. labusinessjournal.com
  12. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hannah Ellis-Petersen, "WLTM Bumble – A dating app where women call the shots", The Guardian, April 12, 2015; Kimya Kavehkar, "Whitney Wolfe: The Matchmaker", Paper Mag, March 7, 2016; "Whitney Wolfe: The Woman Who Took Tinder To Court – And Came Back Fighting", Grazia, August 3, 2016; Hepola, "How Whitney Wolfe Herd Changed the Dating Game", Texas Monthly, 2018-01-18; Tucker Cummings, "Tinder's Whitney Wolfe: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know", Heavy, July 1, 2014 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Billion-Dollar Bumble: How Whitney Wolfe Herd Built America's Fastest-Growing Dating App", Forbes (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  14. Wikipedia, "Whitney Wolfe Herd" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Adamczyk, "Bumble's new CEO is already leaving the company months after killing its signature feature", Fortune, January 17, 2025; "Bumble Inc. 14A", United States Securities and Exchange Commission (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Langmuir, "Meet Elle's 2016 Women in Tech", May 13, 2016. facts only, no text reused. elle.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Whitney Wolfe Herd (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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