A Chinese investment firm has purchased a block of ByteDance Ltd. shares at a valuation of $480 billion, far above recent market levels, highlighting robust investor interest in the Beijing-based tech giant. Bloomberg News reports that venture firm Capital Today emerged as the winning bidder in a transaction involving equity previously held by Bank of China Group Investment Ltd., an early institutional investor in ByteDance. The stake was initially priced at roughly $200 million, corresponding to a $360 billion company valuation, but aggressive bidding among as many as seven participants drove the final price to around $300 million, reflecting the near half-trillion-dollar valuation.
The deal underscores the enduring appeal of ByteDance, founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, which has launched several of China’s most popular digital services and amassed some 170 million TikTok users in the United States. The company has been negotiating a partial sale of its U.S. operations to American investors, a move aimed at mitigating potential regulatory fallout under the Trump administration. Bloomberg previously reported that ByteDance is expected to retain about half of the profit from the U.S. platform even after divesting a majority stake.
The recent valuation represents a sharp increase from earlier transactions. ByteDance initiated a share buyback program for employees in September at an estimated $330 billion valuation and plans to extend its buyback to institutional shareholders this month. Other major investors, including SoftBank Group Corp. and Fidelity Investments, had earlier marked up their holdings to more than $400 billion, according to Bloomberg. Analysts say the auction’s competitiveness reflects both the rarity of acquiring a large batch of existing shares and investor interest in ByteDance’s expanding artificial intelligence, content, and advertising businesses.
Capital Today, led by venture capitalist Kathy Xu, is a prominent backer of China’s tech sector, with prior investments in companies such as Meituan and JD.com Inc. Representatives for Capital Today, ByteDance, and Bank of China did not respond to requests for comment. The transaction ranks among the largest secondary share trades involving ByteDance this year, signaling sustained confidence in the company’s growth trajectory despite geopolitical uncertainties surrounding its U.S. operations.
