Bytedance – Startup Story | Founder| CEO | Funding | History | Competitors


Bytedance
Bytedance - Startup Story | Founder| CEO | Funding | History | Competitors
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Introduction:

ByteDance, Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent are examples of Chinese IT giants that operate in the second-largest economy in the world relatively unchallenged by other major global platform players like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

In the first half of this year, ByteDance brought in more than $7 billion in revenue, according to Reuters, and is valued at $78 billion. At the now, Tencent is valued at $384.5 billion, Alibaba is worth $458.7 billion, and Baidu is worth $36.6 billion. While Google has a market price of $874.5 billion, it has always had difficulty operating in China.

However, businesses like ByteDance, as seen by the success of TikTok, are setting the standard for consumer apps, especially in China where social commerce on mobile is dominant. However, that reach now extends outside of China, and other businesses are taking note.

Google has reportedly expressed interest in buying Firework, another short-form video software that TikTok popularised earlier this month. This shows Google’s keen interest in the short-form video genre.

About Bytedance:

Bytedance image
Bytedance (Image Source: dreamstime.com)

A Chinese internet technology business with its headquarters in Beijing and Cayman Islands incorporation is called ByteDance Ltd. ByteDance hosts 1.9 billion monthly active users across all of its platforms as of June 2021.

ByteDance has come under fire for privacy and surveillance issues, as well as claims that it colluded with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to suppress material related to the continuing genocide against the Uyghur people and other subjects the CCP considered sensitive.

Technology company ByteDance (also known as Beijing Douyin Information Service) runs digital platforms that inform, educate, entertain, and inspire individuals from different languages, cultures, and locations. It provides services for online video, media and entertainment, content development, and other things.

Bytedance Founder & Team:

Zhang Yiming launched ByteDance in March 2012, and it is well-recognized for its amusing mobile applications. It faces off against other major Chinese tech players like Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba.

Bytedance founder image
Bytedance Founder (Image Source: cnbc.com)

Bytedance History:

Zhang Yiming, a software engineer and businessman, founded 99fang.com, a real estate search engine, with his buddy Liang Rubo in 2009. Early in 2012, the two rented an apartment in Zhongguancun and started working on Toutiao, a project that would later become a big data app that would utilize algorithms to categorize news based on user preferences. Yiming and Liang started ByteDance in March of that year.

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ByteDance released Neihan as its debut app in March 2012. This made it possible for people to share amusing videos, memes, and jokes. Nathan Duanzi had more than 200 million subscribers until being forced to shut down in 2018 by the Chinese government. ByteDance debuted the initial version of Toutiao, its flagship product, a news and content platform, in August 2012.

The ByteDance AI Lab, ByteDance’s research division, was created in March 2016. Wei-Ying Ma, a former assistant managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, is in charge of it. The ByteDance AI Lab and Peking University collaborated to create Xiaomingbot, an AI bot that wrote news stories, in the same year.

After Huxiu claimed that ByteDance’s Indian-language news app Helo was spreading false information, ByteDance filed a defamation lawsuit against the Chinese technology news outlet for defamation in December 2018. According to a March 2021 Financial Times article, ByteDance was one of several Chinese businesses looking to use technology to get around Apple’s privacy regulations.

The TikTok platform was made available to other developers so they could create apps comparable to TikTok the next month, according to a statement made by ByteDance. An Oculus-like virtual reality firm named Pico was purchased by ByteDance in August 2021.

ByteDance and Disney announced that Kevin Mayer, the executive in charge of Disney’s streaming division, would join ByteDance on May 19, 2020. Mayer worked for TikTok and ByteDance from June 2020 until his resignation on August 26, 2020, reporting to Zhang Yiming, the company’s CEO. Chew Shouzi, a former CFO at Xiaomi, became the new CEO of TikTok in 2021.

Bytedance Name & Logo:

Bytedance image
Bytedance (Image Source: viterbicareers.usc.edu)

Bytedance Highlight:

Company NameBytedance
FoundersZhang Yiming
Started at2012
CompetitorsThriller.Mitron.Chingari.Bolo Indya.Dubsmash.Trell.Clapper.Kuaishou.
Websitehttps://www.bytedance.com/en/
Revenue$54 Billion
CountryChina
Customer care EmailNot Known
Customer care Contact detailsNot Known
Company Valuation$75 Billion
IndustryIT
HeadquartersBeijing, China

Bytedance Revenue:

ByteDance 2021 financials: $61bn revenues and a $7bn loss.

Bytedance Funding & Investors:

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, SoftBank Group, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, and Hillhouse Capital Group provide financial support for ByteDance. It was expected to be worth $250 billion in private trading as of March 2021.

In April 2021, Wu Shugang, a government official, was appointed to the board of directors of ByteDance’s primary Chinese business by the China Internet Investment Fund, a state-owned company held by the Cyberspace Administration of China and China Media Group. The Chinese government’s investment in ByteDance has been referred to as a “golden share investment” by The Economist and Reuters.

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Bytedance Business Model:

Bytedance Business Model image
Bytedance Business Model (Image Source: digitalinformationworld.com)

ByteDance developed a distinctive business proposition that promotes the TikTok app as a blend of social networking and video-sharing by experimenting with different combinations of business model features in its sizable and more competitive home market.

In contrast to most businesses, Bytedance employs its SSP platform differently. Product teams or units within the organization don’t have control over their own operating resources. Instead, many common operational, technological, and business processes (including HR and legal) are consolidated and divided into relevant teams.

Bytedance Services Offered thru Bytedance:

TikTok, Helo (an Indian social networking app), Vigo Video (formerly Hypstar), Douyin (the Chinese equivalent of TikTok), BaBe (an Indonesian news and content platform), and Huoshan (a Chinese short-form video app) are among its currently available apps.

The AI-powered Toutiao or Jinri Toutiao, one of its earliest offerings, is one of China’s most well-liked news aggregators. By November 2018, it had been set up in more than 240 million different devices, according to iResearch.

Another early app called Neihan Dianzi, which allowed users to share jokes through texts, videos, and memes, was taken down in 2018 by Chinese censors. Additionally, ByteDance is supported by some of the biggest names in venture finance, such as SoftBank and Sequoia Capital.

Bytedance Services image
Bytedance Services (Image Source: medium.com)

Bytedance Awards & Recognition:

The very best work in brand strategy and development on the Asian continent.

Bytedance Competitors:

  • Triller.
  • Mitron.
  • Chingari.
  • Bolo Indya.
  • Dubsmash.
  • Trell.
  • Clapper.
  • Kuaishou.

Bytedance Latest News:

  • Following the tech slowdown, TikTok reduces its $2 billion ad sales aim.
  • In a health venture, ByteDance invests $1.5 billion in a chain of hospitals in China.
  • An internal memo states that Roland Cloutier, head of global security for TikTok, will retire.
  • With a new app, TikTok creator ByteDance targets Xiaohongshu, a leader in the lifestyle industry.

Bytedance Future Plans:

Whether or not it eventually goes public, ByteDance is focused on expanding internationally, especially in the United States where it has been actively hiring employees, especially from Facebook and Snapchat.

Additionally, it is facing the same difficulties with censorship as in the past. This time, U.S. senators are the ones being scrutinized because they are concerned about TikTok’s acquisition of user data and they want to know if China is restricting the content that American users of the app are viewing.

ByteDance is looking for methods to broaden its offerings and audience, much like other platforms. Other press sources have hinted at extensions into music streaming or perhaps the creation of a smartphone, while CNBC reported earlier this year that it may grow into hardware for use in education.

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FAQs about Bytedance:

Will ByteDance go IPO?

TikTok owner ByteDance has no plans to go public, company CFO tells employees.

Who owns ByteDance now?

ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo, who took the helm from Zhang last year, has been based in Singapore for the past two years, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Is Bytedance a publicly-traded company?

No, ByteDance is still privately held, meaning its shares are not available on the stock market yet.

Who owns TikTok now in 2022?

ByteDance.

What makes ByteDance unique?

Bytedance uses its SSP platform differently from most companies. The company’s product teams or units don’t control their own operating resources. Instead, much common business, technology, and operating functions (among them HR and legal) are centralized and organized into corresponding teams.

What is the purpose of ByteDance?

ByteDance Ltd. Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo, and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking services and apps TikTok and Chinese-specific counterpart Douyin. The company is also the developer of the news platform Toutiao.

What’s the difference between TikTok and ByteDance?

ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, has repeatedly said the China business is separate from ByteDance Ltd., an offshore entity that wholly owns TikTok, a viral video app that has more than 1 billion monthly active users.

Why ByteDance is so successful?

Some, such as TikTok, have a global reach. Others, such as the news aggregation Toutiao, have only been available in China thus far. Bytedance has done more than any other Chinese internet business to break into the United States under Zhang’s leadership, dominating the market with its enormously popular TikTok app.

What role does AI play in ByteDance?

AI creates value by pushing relevant content up the feed and engaging the users to a better extent and increasing the session times of the users.

What is the future of ByteDance?

The TikTok parent plans to eventually integrate music streaming within its short-video service and scale it to serve as a major platform for distributing music globally, according to the report that cited people with knowledge of the discussions.

Is ByteDance a good place to work?

Is ByteDance a good company to work for? ByteDance has an overall rating of 4.1 out of 5, based on over 2,396 reviews left anonymously by employees. 79% of employees would recommend working at ByteDance to a friend and 72% have a positive outlook for the business.

Conclusion:

TikTok advertisements are now being aired by some media buyers. For instance, according to David Herrmann, Bytedance president of Herrmann Digital, those ads “perform significantly different” from the ones he runs on more established platforms, like Snapchat.

It’s no longer a direct answer. Whereas Snapchat, it’s more of a conversion play, TikTok is more of an awareness play. “I believe Snapchat and TikTok can coexist without any issues,” he continued. Although I believe TikTok to be a player, they still have a long way to go.


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Sai Sandhya