Attention · platform
musical.ly
Lip sync video app, merged into TikTok · Outside the United States
- Founded
- 2014 to 2018
- Entered
- 2014
- Status 2026
- Acquired
- Metro
- Outside the United States
- Embeddedness
- 2 connections
- Confidence
- verified · strongest source trade or financial press
Method
Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang launch musical.ly from Shanghai in August 2014 with a Santa Monica office, pivoting from an education app to 15 second lip sync clips. It reaches 90 million users by June 2016 and 200 million by May 2017, creating the first generation of US teen video stars. ByteDance buys the company on 10 November 2017 for a reported price of up to 1 billion dollars and merges it into TikTok on 2 August 2018, migrating all accounts. musical.ly never runs a creator payout program; its stars earn through brand deals and later TikTok. Zhu becomes head of product for TikTok.
Open questions: The up to 1 billion dollar purchase price is press reported only; retrieved trade sources confirm the November 2017 acquisition and the August 2, 2018 merger into TikTok but not the price.
People: Alex Zhu, Luyu Yang
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