The world's most valuable startup

The Founder of TikTok

Chinese startup ByteDance, creator of TikTok, is now the world’s most valuable startup at over $400 billion. With two billion downloads, ByteDance made TikTok a global phenomenon by using AI to deliver hyper-personalized content—surpassing giants like Facebook and X and redefining digital engagement.

Startup Story of ByteDance

A Vision of AI-Driven Content

ByteDance’s explosive growth began with Zhang Yiming’s vision to bring machine learning into the digital experience of digital media. As a former software engineer he first started ByteDance in 2012. With a small team, he launched ByteDance’s first app, Toutiao, a news aggregator that tailored news feeds to individual preferences.

Toutiao quickly became one of China’s most popular news apps, marking ByteDance’s first big win in AI-driven content curation. This early-success laid the groundwork for ByteDance’s next product, Douyin, which launched in 2016. Douyin’s appeal and personalized video feed caught on fast in China and would soon become TikTok

Buying their way to influence

By 2016, ByteDance was ready to take Douyin global, but building an international presence from scratch would be both challenging and slow for a Chinese startup.

To overcome this hurdle, Zhang Yiming looked for a strategic shortcut. Backed by Chinese investors like SoftBank and building on ByteDance’s rapid domestic success Zhang rebranded Douyin as TikTok and made a decision to acquire Musical.ly for $1 billion in order to capture an existing user base in the U.S. similar to that of the Chinese audience for Douyin.

Following the Musical.ly acquisition, TikTok’s growth was explosive. By 2018, TikTok had over 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone. Within two years, TikTok had surpassed 2 billion downloads globally, capturing audiences across generations with its engaging, AI-powered “For You” feed.

Growth Backed by Billion-Dollar Investors

ByteDance’s growth internationally was powered by massive financial backing from major investors. Entering the U.S. market, the Chinese startup focused on reducing its ties to China and secured over $7.4 billion in funding from Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic.

By 2023, ByteDance’s annual revenue neared $120 billion, making it one of the highest-grossing tech startups worldwide. The support from these investors underscored ByteDance’s growing influence abroad while sustaining a competitive edge in the social media market.

Digital Dominance & Chinese Controversy

However, ByteDance’s rise as a Chinese startup has been accompanied by increasing scrutiny, particularly in the U.S., where data privacy and national security concerns have put TikTok in the face of regulatory battles.

In 2020, the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok, prompting ByteDance to introduce “Project Texas,” a partnership with Oracle to store U.S. user data domestically. While ByteDance has taken steps to address these concerns, questions around data privacy and the startups Chinese ownership remain.

Today, ByteDance is expanding beyond social media into e-commerce, gaming, and education, aiming to build a digital ecosystem to expand its revenue beyond the advertising and subscription models of social media apps.

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Odin & Hari