GSR Ventures found Didi, Ele.me and Xiaohongshu while they were still risky ideas. Two decades later, its early-stage playbook remains intact - but the cross-border world that made it distinctive has been redrawn.
ByteDance is a Beijing-headquartered technology company behind TikTok, Douyin, CapCut, Lark, Toutiao and the Doubao family of AI models. Founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo, it built one of the world's most powerful content recommendation engines and grew into the largest social-media company by revenue, surpassing Meta in early 2026.