Bytedance, the China-based owner of aggregated news app Toutiao, is mulling the launch of an initial public offering that would enable corporate Susquehanna International Group (SIG) to exit, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
The prospective offering would value the company at about $45bn and could take place in its home country before the end of this year, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ.
Bytedance’s lead product is Toutiao, a curated news app that claimed to have120 million daily active users as of January this year. It recently branched out into subscription-based content with the launch of a learning app called Haohao Xuexi.
The company has also beefed up its assets with a string of recent acquisitions, buying livestreaming app Live.me, social video platform Musical.ly and photo augmentation app Faceu in the space of three months.
Bytedance last raised financing in when it issued $300m in convertible bonds to investors including KKR, and its last equity funding came in a $2bn round led by General Atlantic in August 2017 at a reported $20bn valuation.
Technology and trading firm SIG invested in Bytedance in series A and B rounds of undisclosed size together with private investor Yuri Milne in 2012 and 2013.
The company subsequently raised $100m in a 2014 series C round led by Sequoia Capital and backed by internet company Sina Weibo at a $500m valuation.
Sina subsequently exited Bytedance in a $1bn round in April 2017 that was co-led by Sequoia Capital and CCB International, a subsidiary of financial services firm China Construction Bank, valuing the company at $11bn.