Kevin O'Leary is putting together a syndicate for a potential purchase of TikTok, with a starting bid of $20 billion to $30 billion — an up to 90% cut in valuation from the company's last funding round.
Any deal for the short video-sharing platform — valued at $220 billion in 2023, according to PitchBook data — will likely exclude the user preference-based algorithms that have helped make it so successful, the O'Leary Ventures Chairman said on CNBC's "Street Signs Asia."
"It's the largest entertainment and business network in America as it stands today, so it's of great interest and great value," he said on Friday.
But it is not likely that the Chinese government will sell the algorithms, "so what you're getting is the valuable domestic brand TikTok and 170 million users, with no data," O'Leary said.
A potential buyer will have to "re-emulate" those algorithms with U.S. code and act as a "steward" to transform the platform from "TikTok China to TikTok U.S.A." Hence the valuation cut.
Persons:
ByteDance, Kevin O'Leary, O'Leary
Organizations:
U.S . House, O'Leary, TikTok
Locations:
TikTok, Culver City , California, America, China