Musical.ly, a Chinese App Big in the U.S., Sells for $1 Billion - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/dealbook/musically-sold-app-video.html
SHANGHAI — The only Chinese social media company to build a major network outside China will be taken over by a fast-growing Chinese upstart.
Musical.ly, a video-based social network popular with teenagers in the United States and Europe, is being sold for between $800 million and $1 billion to Bytedance, the company that controls the Chinese news aggregator Toutiao, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The deal knits together Toutiao’s 120 million Chinese users with the roughly 60 million who use Musical.ly in the United States and Europe, ultimately linking a platform in China with a more global one.
Musical.ly will continue to operate a separate product, according to a statement on the deal, though the two companies will cooperate closely.
Despite the dominance of established social media services like Facebook and Snap, Musical.ly rose to prominence among a teenage and tween audience by enabling users to record quick videos set to music. Young users of the app performed coordinated dance moves or lip-synced to the music.