TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is valued at $180B. It’s worth way more.

Most of us know ByteDance as the China-based parent company of video app TikTok, which was supposed to be banned in the United States.

It’s not year clear what’s going on with the ban, but ByteDance’s business didn’t skip a beat last year… in fact, the company’s revenue doubled to ~$37B in 2020, according to The Information.

In addition to TikTok, ByteDance owns 2 huge ad-based Chinese apps:

• Douyin, which is basically China’s version of TikTok
• Toutiao, a news aggregator powered by a recommendation engine

ByteDance is currently valued at $180B, but when it goes public — which it wants to do in 2021 — it will likely skyrocket based on 2 comparisons:

• Facebook: Despite having ~½ of FB’s revenue ($37B vs. $79B), it’s valued at ~¼ of the American social network ($180B vs. $800B)
• Kuaishou: A competing Chinese social app is aiming for a $60B IPO on ~$4B of revenue; at the same market value-to-sales ratio, ByteDance would be worth $500B+.

In sum: 👀 🚀

Check out our related coverage:

• The Oracle/Walmart/TikTok “deal,” explained
• Why the Chinese government is going after Jack Ma