ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the wildly popular TikTok video app, is looking to borrow around $2 billion from banks, according to people familiar with the matter. The money would add to ByteDance’s war chest as TikTok challenges Facebook and Snapchat in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
The latest fundraising comes as ByteDance, the world’s most highly valued startup with a $75 billion price tag in its most recent equity funding round last year, continues to expand globally through TikTok, which has been downloaded 1.5 billion times worldwide, and with other apps. It has spent heavily on marketing and recruiting more talent around the world. In China, the Beijing-based company operates Douyin, a video app similar to TikTok, and Jinri Toutiao, a Chinese news feed app.
