Techbuzz China By Pandaily

In episode 28 of TechBuzz China, co-hosts Ying-Ying Lu and Rui Ma talk about the Chinese AI company that recently toppled Uber to become the highest-valued startup in the world: Bytedance. Having just closed on a $3 billion funding round led by SoftBank, the company is currently valued at $75 billion. Though our co-hosts have mentioned Bytedance across several previous episodes, including a focus on the company’s war with Tencent in episode 9, today’s episode is the first to delve into its founding story, and to give a snapshot of its key strengths and weaknesses. Bytedance’s parent company was founded in 2012 with the buzzy mandate to “combine the power of AI with the growth of mobile internet to revolutionize the way people consume and receive information.” Six years later, the company’s two main apps, news-oriented Toutiao and video-based TikTok, have over 260 million and over 500 million monthly active users, respectively. In fact, TikTok, which is just a bit over two years old, was the most downloaded ap