Uber, at $72 billion, was the most valuable startup. But now a
Chinese tech startup known as ByteDance
has left Uber behind and is the world’s highest value tech startup. Forbes and
Bloomberg recently reported that new deals and incoming investments have raised
ByteDance’s value to $78 billion.
ByteDance operates a range of digital media platforms, but
it is best known for Toutiao, its
AI-based news aggregator that has become one of China’s most-used apps with
over 120 million users, and short video platform TikTok, which recently
gobbled up Musical.ly which
ByteDance acquired via a $1 billion
acquisition last year.
ByteDance aims at going global with apps like TikTok. It
already has 500 million users in TikTok. It plans to step out of China with its other platforms too. In
China it has already toppled down corporate giants like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Tech
giants in the US have also noticed the uproar of ByteDance. Google plans on
creating a Toutiao type news app for the people of China while Facebook is all
set to compete with TikTok through their own app call Lasso.
This lead might be short lived because Uber is planning on
going public which would take its valuation to $120 billion. If any such thing
happens you know where you’ll hear the news first. That’s right, on this blog!
