ByteDance
TikTok parent, Beijing · Outside the United States
- Founded
- 2012
- Entered
- 2012
- Status 2026
- Active
- Metro
- Outside the United States
- Embeddedness
- 2 connections
- Confidence
- verified · strongest source primary or company
Method
ByteDance buys Shanghai based musical.ly, the lip sync app that had 90 million registered users and the top US teen audience by mid 2016, in November 2017 for a reported price of up to 1 billion dollars, and folds it into TikTok on August 2, 2018, moving accounts, content and followers across. The purchase gives TikTok its American creator base. In January 2026 the US business is placed in TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, announced by the venture on January 23, 2026, with Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX as managing investors holding 15 percent each, ByteDance keeping 19.9 percent, and the remaining 35.1 percent spread across a consortium including Michael Dell's family office, Vastmere Strategic Investments, an affiliate of Susquehanna, Alpha Wave, Revolution, Dragoneer and General Atlantic affiliates, a Milner foundation vehicle and Xavier Niel's NJJ Capital.
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The path: money and goods moving
- acquiredmusical.lyByteDance buys musical.ly in November 2017 for a reported price of up to 1 billion dollars and merges it into TikTok on August 2, 2018.2017
- spawnedTikTokByteDance launches TikTok internationally in September 2017 as the overseas version of Douyin.2017