ByteDance, the China-headquartered digital media company that counts telecommunications and internet group SoftBank as an investor, is raising about $2bn at a valuation of approximately $180bn, Reuters reported on Friday.
Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and investment firm KKR are set to co-lead the round, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Founded in 2012, ByteDance operates news aggregator app Toutiao, video streaming service BuzzVideo and short-form video app Vigo but is best known for Douyin, the social video app known as TikTok in western countries.
SoftBank joined KKR, growth equity firm General Atlantic and investment firm Primavera Capital Group in the company’s last round, in late 2018, when it secured $3bn at a reported $78bn post-money valuation to push its overall funding to more than $6.1bn.
General Atlantic had invested $2bn in ByteDance in August 2017 at a $20bn valuation, four months after Sequoia Capital and China Construction Bank’s CCB International subsidiary provided $1bn in series D funding, allowing internet company Sina to exit at an $11bn valuation.
Quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group’s SIG China unit, Sequoia Capital and entrepreneur Yuri Milner are among the company’s earlier backers.
News of the prospective round comes after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction ruling against government restrictions in the United States that would have effectively made it illegal for ByteDance to operate TikTok in the country.
