Chinese app maker Bytedance aims to raise $3 billion in its next funding round, giving the six-year-old company a staggering valuation of $75 billion, Reuters reports.
The Beijing-based tech firm, which owns the massively popular news app Jinri Toutiao, short video platform Douyin and the lip-synching app Musical.ly, is also considering a multibillion-dollar initial public offering in Hong Kong next year and has hired investment banks to prepare for the listing, sources told Reuters.
Bytedance’s products have hundreds of millions of users worldwide and TikTok, the international version of video app Douyin, was the world’s most downloaded app during the first quarter of this year. But the company also faces a number of headwinds, including a crackdown by China’s government on “fake news” and content it deems “vulgar,” as well as the growing hawkishness in the West toward Chinese technology companies and Beijing’s crackdown on debt, which is leading to tighter credit conditions in the Chinese market.