Bumble was founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd as a dating app intended to give women more control over initiating heterosexual matches.
Wolfe Herd had previously worked at Tinder, where she was an early executive and vice president of marketing. After leaving that company, she developed the idea for a social network centered on positive interactions. With support from Badoo founder Andrey Andreev, she launched Bumble in 2014 and became its public face and chief executive.
Bumble’s signature dating feature required women in heterosexual matches to send the first message. The company later expanded into Bumble BFF for friendship and Bumble Bizz for professional networking, although dating remained its best-known service. Its brand emphasized safety, agency, and a more deliberate alternative to some established dating apps.
A frequent mix-up is calling Wolfe Herd a co-founder of Tinder. She was an early Tinder executive and is widely described as a co-founder, but the question’s dating app founded by her is Bumble. OkCupid, Hinge, and Tinder are separate services with different founding histories and ownership stories.