(Bloomberg) — ByteDance Ltd. has traded in recent weeks at valuations well below $300 billion, down at least 25% from last year after investors cashed out of the social media giant with its IPO now on ice.
Investors have been buying shares in China’s biggest startup at valuations as low as $275 billion, people with knowledge of the deals said. In one case, a prospective buyer negotiated the seller down to $280 billion before eventually pulling the plug, one of the people said. Some investors have offered as low as $250 billion though there’s still a wide gap between many potential buyers and sellers, they said, asking not to be identified describing undisclosed transactions.
That drop came after Tiger Global Management bought additional shares in the firm last year at a blended valuation of $460 billion, according to an investor document seen by Bloomberg News. ByteDance is the parent of hit video app TikTok, as well as several successful apps in China.
The plunge in valuation underscores worsening sentiment around China’s tech giants, which are grappling with a souring of sentiment on tech assets worldwide as well as a domestic government crackdown that’s spooked investors. Venture funding in China has plummeted, while shares in Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are down about 24% and 13%, respectively, since the start of the year. ByteDance’s IPO, once one of the most hotly anticipated debuts from of Chinese tech, is unlikely to proceed in the near term till global markets stabilize.
ByteDance has, like many of its rivals, been forced to curtail some of its riskier expansion projects under Beijing’s intensified scrutiny. In June, it shuttered a key game development studio and let more than 100 staffers go, backing off erstwhile aspirations to take on Tencent on its own turf. And this month, Louis Yang, a co-founder of Musical.ly — the app acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and merged with TikTok — quit after ByteDance called off an expensive foray into education gadgets.
Many funds have pushed into private technology investments in the last several years, betting they could benefit from soaring valuations for hot startups and a booming IPO market. Now they’re grappling with a much tougher environment, as equity markets around the globe rack up declines and investors turn away from riskier growth plays.
Representatives for ByteDance didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Tiger declined to comment.
Read more: TikTok Turns Cash Machine With Revenue Tripling to $12 Billion
On the face of it, China’s $1 trillion internet industry is finally emerging from a brutal reckoning. Jack Ma’s embattled Ant Group Co. is expecting the central bank to soon agree to review its bid for a key financial holding license, people familiar with the matter have said. Scores of new video games were recently greenlit for app stores. And after a sweeping data security probe, Beijing may soon let ride-sharing company Didi Global Inc. off with a mere fine.
ByteDance remains among the most global of the country’s tech firms: TikTok alone is expected to generate $12 billion of revenue this year — more than Snap Inc. and Twitter Inc. combined. Its local equivalent Douyin and domestic services such as Toutiao continue to lead their respective spheres, gaining market share from the likes of Tencent and Alibaba.
But startups like ByteDance labor under complex new regulations that are chilling investment activity. The rules govern everything from the platform economy to what kinds of entertainment are permissible on social media. Scrutiny over practically every facet of the industry has led to a chilling effect. US money, which vanished during the clampdown, shows no sign of returning. JPMorgan was among the Wall Street institutions that — for a time — called China “uninvestable.”
Read more: China’s Traumatized Tech Insiders Signal Danger for Market Rally
Tiger Global began investing in Bytedance in 2018, when it first bought in at a $35 billion blended valuation, the document seen by Bloomberg News showed. The stake is among the top ten winners across its private funds, with more than $1.5 billion in realized and unrealized gains, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The stake also sits within Tiger Global’s hedge fund, which has sunk 50% this year through June. Other notable ByteDance investors include KKR & Co. and Sequoia Capital, which both led the company’s 2020 funding round with a valuation of $180 billion, according to PitchBook data.
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