NewsOct 28, 2026, 10:28 UTC

Korea Investment bets $4M on TikTok owner ByteDance, extending SpaceX and Anthropic streak

What's the deal? Korea Investment Partners has invested $4 million (US$4.61M) in ByteDance, the Chinese operator of TikTok, in a late-stage deal announced in October. The firm backed the company through a project fund, Korea Investment Signature No. 2, formed last month with about $8 million in capital.

Where the money came from: The entire fund was financed through Korea Investment & Securities' trust accounts. Of the $8 million raised, half went to ByteDance; the rest is reserved for further global deals.

Why now? The fund mirrors the structure Korea Investment Partners used for last year's SpaceX investment, letting it move quickly on companies with symbolic weight and growth potential. The approach adds ByteDance to a portfolio that already includes SpaceX and Anthropic.

By the numbers: ByteDance reported revenue of roughly $200.7 billion and net profit of $43.4 billion last year, with quarterly revenue already surpassing Meta's. Its advertising and e-commerce businesses grew about 40% in the first half of this year against the same period in 2025.

What's the context? The commitment is tiny beside ByteDance's recent financing. Reuters reported a $29.6 billion bank loan to fund AI expansion, while spun-off drug-discovery unit Anew Labs raised $290 million at a reported $1.5 billion valuation.

The signal: For Korea Investment Partners, the deal matters less for its size than for the access it buys — a rare Korean stake in a major private Chinese tech company and its AI ambitions, as US-China competition shifts from model development to infrastructure.