ByteDance's Founder Zhang Yiming Launches HK Investment Fund

The founder of TikTok's parent company, Zhang Yiming, is a billionaire. He made a new investment fund in Hong Kong. He has not been in the public eye for two years. He is not involved in the corporate roles anymore.

A personal fund, called Cool River Venture, will focus on investing in technology industries. People with knowledge of the matter refused to disclose details as it is confidential.

The car was made on May 22. The Hong Kong government's companies registry reported this.

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Zhang has a new venture. He was the CEO and chairman of ByteDance. ByteDance is in Beijing. It is the most valuable unicorn in the world. The new venture is a rare glimpse.

Last year, the 40-year-old Chinese entrepreneur spent most of his time overseas. He was mostly in Singapore. TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi is also based in Singapore.

Zhang keeps his daily plans private. His location is not known to many.

In southeast China, Zhang's hometown is Longyan. The education bureau there said he donated 200 million yuan to an education fund. He created this fund with 500 million yuan in 2021.

The picture of Zhang used by the government was old. It was from two years ago.

A building belonging to ByteDance has the Douyin logo in Beijing. Douyin is like TikTok for China. A photo shows this. The photo is from EPA-EFE.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index says that Zhang is worth US$42.3 billion.

ByteDance is growing strongly despite political pressure in the West. Liang Rubo, the co-founder and Zhang's university roommate, is in charge now.

The company made more than US$80 billion in 2022. This happened because they did well with advertising in mainland China. This result means they are now as successful as Tencent Holdings. Tencent Holdings made about US$80 billion last year.

TikTok is facing issues in the US. It has over 100 million users there. ByteDance owns TikTok.

The company called TikTok has an office in Culver City, California. The TikTok logo is outside the office. This logo can be seen in a photo. The photo was taken by AFP via Getty Images/TNS.

Montana passed a law in April. The law makes it illegal to offer TikTok for download. The aim is to protect citizens' personal data. They want to prevent it from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.

Chew, the CEO of TikTok, said the ban is unconstitutional. The company sued against it on Monday.

The Biden administration said in February that the app shouldn't be on government devices because of data privacy worries. Over 30 state governments did the same thing.

ByteDance's valuation is decreasing due to uncertainties. Their plans for a public listing are on hold.

In March, G42 invested in ByteDance. They said that ByteDance is now worth about US$220 billion. This is less than its highest worth in 2021, which was US$400 billion.

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