Exclusive | ByteDance looks to list Douyin in New York, seizing on new mood in Biden administration and strong demand for China tech stocks

ByteDance, one of China’s most valuable technology unicorns, is looking to raise capital in the United States by listing the shares of its China-only short video sharing application Douyin in New York, according to a source familiar with the plan.

The New York listing is still under preliminary discussion, but it has gained traction with ByteDance’s investors after Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th US president, according to the source, who declined to be identified as speaking on a confidential matter.

A US listing is not mutually exclusive with raising funds in Hong Kong, as ByteDance can follow with a secondary listing in Asia’s second-largest capital market, following in the footsteps of other technology champions like Alibaba Group Holding, JD.com and NetEase. A New York listing by Douyin would be the first initial public offering (IPO) by a Chinese social-media network in the US, giving American investors a piece of one of the most successful apps in the world’s largest internet market.

“The general response [from ByteDance investors] is, ‘Why not?’,” the source said. “Hong Kong will be crazy about Douyin, everyone can see that after the Kuaishou listing … but Douyin will be hot in the US market as well. Just look at the price surges of China tech stocks there.”

Douyin, which allows users to post short-form videos in mainland China, reported 600 million daily active users as of August 2020. Smaller in terms of users than sibling TikTok – which serves customers outside mainland China – Douyin contributed to two-thirds of the advertising revenue at ByteDance, according to 36Kr, a Chinese-language online technology news outlet. Douyin, launched as recently as 2016, has been downloaded more than 1 billion times.