As fortunes of American social media giants continue to shake (see above story), social media titans in China are only getting richer.
The Information first reported that ByteDance, the creator of the Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, the video sharing service Tik Tok and a mess of other media-tainment apps, is in talks to raise new funding worth $3B — a number that, if hit, would give the company a $75B valuation.
Takin’ a byte out of the private market
Though the round isn’t official, a $75B valuation would make ByteDance one of the world’s most valuable private tech companies — for context, Uber was recently valued at $76B.
Since the company was founded in 2012, ByteDance’s apps have become a favorite among users AND advertisers in the world’s most sprawling online population.
And they aren’t looking to stay exclusive to China forever
Last year, they bought Musical.ly (now part of Tik Tok), a lip-syncing social network popular with American and European teenagers — the company’s first sign of global aspirations.
And it makes sense: Chinese regulators don’t mess around. If they don’t like something a content company is doing, they’ll ban them faster than you can say hashtag.
Last year, ByteDance was ordered to suspend updates to its news app Toutiao after China accused it of spreading, by their standards, distasteful material.