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Since being based in a Beijing residential flat by entrepreneur Zhang Yiming a decade in the past, ByteDance has grown at an astonishing tempo solely just lately hampered by China’s crackdown on Massive Tech final yr.
The corporate, which additionally runs Douyin, the Chinese language model of TikTok, acquired a lift final yr when its rival Kuaishou Know-how went public in Hong Kong. ByteDance’s non-public valuation rose together with its rival’s inventory proper after the preliminary public providing, earlier than Beijing’s crackdowns began to weigh closely available on the market. Kuaishou has misplaced roughly 80 per cent of its worth since its peak in February 2021.
Rumours have additionally swirled about ByteDance’s plans for an IPO, which sources beforehand informed the Publish have been postponed over new rules. The corporate issued an announcement in April 2021 saying it has no plans for a public itemizing.
A few of ByteDance’s long-term buyers, primarily enterprise capital funds, have been attempting to money out. Tiger World Administration, which has held fairness within the firm since 2018, estimated the corporate’s valuation at lower than US$300 billion. Sequoia China, which invested in ByteDance as early as 2014, has denied a Monday report from The Wall Road Journal that it valued the corporate at simply US$180 billion.
A Sequoia China consultant declined to touch upon ByteDance’s present valuation. ByteDance and Tiger World didn’t reply to requests for touch upon Wednesday.
As with many Chinese language tech corporations, ByteDance’s prospects for revenue development within the home market stay clouded by tightened rules. The central authorities has turn out to be extra intrusive in regulating brief video content material. A brand new regulation governing the usage of suggestion algorithms went into impact in March.
ByteDance additionally faces elevated competitors, particularly from Tencent, which has launched a brand new brief video service to its ubiquitous messaging app WeChat.
However TikTok stays extraordinarily common abroad, with 1 billion customers throughout the globe, in contrast with 600 million every day energetic customers on Douyin. The Chinese language app’s recognition has even invited political scrutiny in international locations like India, the place it has been banned since 2020, and the US.
In a significant company reshuffle in Nov 2021, former chief monetary officer (CFO) Chew Shou Zi, who beforehand helped pave Xiaomi Corp’s technique to an IPO, stepped down from that function to give attention to his work as chief govt of TikTok.
A month earlier, ByteDance employed one other CFO, veteran company lawyer Julie Gao, who has suggested many Chinese language know-how corporations on public listings and different transactions.
The corporate final month additionally renamed a number of Hong Kong-registered entities, together with one for “Douyin”, renewing hypothesis about whether or not the Chinese language brief video enterprise shall be floated on town’s bourse.
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