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Doris Yu · · 1 min readSources: TikTok owner makes automotive bet with investment in QCraft
“Chinese social media titan ByteDance is investing in local autonomous driving startup QCraft, another sign of the blurring of boundaries between car companies and big tech,” reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.
Details:
- ByteDance is pouring money into QCraft as part of its latest investment round, which could net the car company at least US$25 million, said sources.
- The investment, which may be announced as soon as next week, marks the short-video platform’s first foray into the automotive industry.
Context:
- The development follows other tech giants making their own bets in the self-driving space, such as Baidu and Tencent.
- China, the world’s biggest vehicle market, is looking to have smart cars that have some measure of automation account for over half of the new sales in the country by 2025, according to a national technology road map.
Editing by Miguel Cordon and September Grace Mahino
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