With TikTok dealing with a attainable shutdown within the US – if guardian firm ByteDance doesn’t promote the app – rival Triller has been working to choose up market share within the brief video social media market.
Final fall, it employed ex-TikTok exec Sean Kim to move up the corporate’s Triller app division, and earlier this month, the app launched the web site SaveMyTikToks.com, which guarantees to add TikTok customers’ movies to Triller, in an effort to choose up customers trying round for a Plan B if TikTok goes darkish stateside.
Triller says the initiative “has ushered in waves of creators searching for a US-owned platform free from political and regulatory roadblocks,” although it hasn’t disclosed person numbers.
Triller does seem like gaining momentum amongst buyers. Dad or mum firm Triller Group introduced on Wednesday (January 29) that it had raised $50 million in an fairness funding spherical, secured by a personal placement with institutional buyers.
The lead investor within the spherical was KCP Holdings Ltd., which acquired USD $14 million price of Triller Group fairness at $2.20 per share. Triller Group inventory was buying and selling at $1.90 per share as of mid-day on Thursday (January 30).
In line with SEC filings, Cayman Islands-registered KCP Holdings now controls 7.25% of Triller Group’s frequent inventory. KCP designated Dr. Roger Kennedy to function a non-executive director on Triller Group’s board.
The corporate hasn’t disclosed the opposite buyers in its newest spherical, however did title some earlier non-investor “backers” together with Conor McGregor, The Weeknd, Marshmello, Lil Wayne, and “many extra.”
“At Triller, we’re not simply constructing a platform — we’re main a motion,” Triller Group CEO Wing Fai Ng stated in a press release.
Wing sought to downplay the position of TikTok’s troubles within the firm’s strategic development plans.
“Whether or not TikTok is banned or not has no bearing on our trajectory. With powerhouses like Conor McGregor and different international icons who champion our imaginative and prescient, we’ve created a platform that’s designed to outlast TikTok and every other competitor,” he stated.
“Whether or not TikTok is banned or not has no bearing on our trajectory. With powerhouses like Conor McGregor and different international icons who champion our imaginative and prescient, we’ve created a platform that’s designed to outlast TikTok and every other competitor.”
Wing Fai Ng, Triller Group
Triller says the capital raised will go in direction of “enhancing the platform for customers,” together with new AI instruments, enhanced live-streaming capabilities, and a revamped enhancing suite.
The corporate says it’s “poised for dominance in 2025,” aiming to place itself because the “premier social media hub” this yr.
And it’s portraying itself as being on the proper facet of the more and more politicized atmosphere surrounding social media apps, publicizing the truth that it made a “sizeable contribution” to the Trump Inauguration Fund.
This marks Triller’s first capital infusion since its merger final yr with AGBA, a Hong Kong-focused monetary companies agency. With the merger, Triller achieved its long-sought objective of a public itemizing. The newly-formed Triller Group started buying and selling on the NASDAQ beneath the ticker image ILLR final October.
The merger enabled the corporate to handle some obvious monetary issues, amongst them lawsuits from Sony Music and Common Music Group, alleging the corporate had didn’t pay music licensing charges. In an SEC submitting in early 2024, the corporate revealed it owed music rights holders $23.6 million in unpaid charges.
As a part of the merger plan, which shareholders authorized final September, Triller Group put aside 50 million shares to be “utilized towards future settlement of sure Triller authorized and monetary obligations.” These shares can be price $95 million on the present market value.
When Triller and AGBA introduced their merger final yr, they predicted a $4 billion IPO, however the firm fell in need of that, with a market cap of round $705 million on the primary buying and selling day. The inventory has declined since then, with Triller Group’s market cap sitting at $295 million as of mid-day Thursday (January 30).Music Enterprise Worldwide
