China-based digital media company ByteDance has begun discussions with investors including telecommunications firm SoftBank over a funding round that could value it at about $75bn pre-money, Bloomberg reported today.
Investment firm KKR and growth equity firm General Atlantic are also involved in the talks and have led negotiations, according to people familiar with the matter. SoftBank plans to invest about $1.5bn, though that could change before any deal closes.
News of the talks comes after a report last month stating that ByteDance was seeking $3bn in funding at a valuation of between $70bn and $75bn. General Atlantic led its last round in August 2017, when it raised $2bn at a $20bn valuation.
ByteDance operates a digital media offering focused on its news aggregation app, Toutiao, which has been boosted by the acquisitions of news aggregator News Republic and karaoke app Musical.ly in November 2017, and selfie app developer Faceu in February 2018.
Musical.ly was merged with ByteDance’s TikTok platform last month to form a more diversified short-form video platform that reportedly had a combined 600 million monthly active users as of June this year.
The prospective deal would make ByteDance the second most valuable venture capital-backed company in the world, behind financial services provider Ant Financial, and the most valuable not to have been spun off from an existing company.
ByteDance raised undisclosed sums in a 2012 series A round and a 2013 series B featuring technology and trading firm Susquehanna International Group and Yuri Milner, before venture capital firm Sequoia Capital led its $100m series C round in 2014 at a $500m valuation.
Internet company Sina also took part in the series C round, but exited as part of a $1bn series D round co-led by Sequoia and financial services firm China Construction Bank’s CCB International unit in April 2017, at an $11bn valuation.
