873.3 billion yuan, is one of ByteDance's shareholders about to launch an IPO?

When people talk about ByteDance, what everyone remembers is the "legend" of Zhang Yiming's entrepreneurship.

Few people know that behind ByteDance's most daunting step toward global expansion, there is an extremely low-profile overseas capital firm.

In 2017, ByteDance was far from as prominent as it is today. Most capital firms were bearish on it, and did not believe that a Chinese company could sweep across overseas markets. When a large number of top-tier VCs and PEs held back and waited to see, no one was willing to pay for Zhang Yiming's global ambition, a "mysterious" capital firm took the lead in investing 2 billion US dollars, becoming ByteDance's core investor, laying the groundwork for TikTok's global dominance.

It is General Atlantic, a veteran PE that has been deeply engaged in the Chinese market for more than 20 years with assets under management exceeding 1300 billion US dollars (about 8.733 trillion RMB). Recently, a major signal came from Wall Street in the United States across the ocean: General Atlantic, which has always been low-key, has submitted confidential registration documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), restarting its IPO on the U.S. stock market and preparing to move from behind the scenes to the front stage.

I

All great business legends hide a counter-trend choice that "no one dares to bet on".

The brilliant achievements ByteDance has today come from getting through the most daunting and critical "life-and-death" inflection point. In 2017, Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, was extremely anxious. In China, he was the target of encirclement and suppression by a large number of portal websites and internet platforms. At that time, in the domestic short video track, Kuaishou had been deeply cultivating the sinking market for many years, with user stickiness and market share ranking first steadily, making it very difficult to achieve overtaking in a curve.

Overseas, Facebook "monopolized" the global social media traffic, and capital firms were not optimistic about "Chinese APPs gaining a foothold in Europe and America". "Doubts, wait-and-see, and pessimistic predictions" were the external attitude towards ByteDance at that stage. For Zhang Yiming, he was faced with a dilemma "dead end". First, he needed to break through the domestic "involution" pattern and find a new way out. Second, how to enter the more daunting overseas market?

Of course, opportunities were not absent. The hit short video platform Musical.ly, which had a booming business in Europe and America, was in a hurry to sell due to commercialization problems, with a price tag of 1 billion US dollars. Zhang Yiming was extremely anxious: he urgently needed a huge sum of money to acquire Musical.ly. If he succeeded, he would lead ByteDance to get rid of "involution". If he failed, the company might suffer total collapse. At the critical moment when no one in the whole market dared to make a move, Bill Ford, founder of General Atlantic and current director of ByteDance, made a decisive decision to invest 2 billion US dollars to take a heavy position in ByteDance.

After General Atlantic entered, ByteDance's valuation soared from 11 billion US dollars to 22.222 billion US dollars, doubling its valuation. Bill Ford successfully obtained a seat on ByteDance's board of directors, becoming an important director at the "life-and-death" inflection point of ByteDance's globalization stage.

Bill Ford has a set of very innovative investment philosophies: "Only empower, not control; only accompany, not intervene." Different from other capital firms in the market that adopt the intervention strategy of "urging IPO and urging cash out", General Atlantic fully respects the business decisions of ByteDance's management. It not only does not interfere in the daily operation of the company, but also uses the global resources accumulated over decades to personally assist in the cross-border M&A negotiation of Musical.ly, help ByteDance clear the compliance channels in Europe and America, and fight against the encirclement and suppression by the U.S. authorities and Facebook.

It was this precise capital injection that allowed ByteDance to incubate TikTok, which has swept the world, rewriting the history of Chinese internet companies' "going global".

In 2018, the global internet industry entered a "winter" with sharp fluctuations in valuations. General Atlantic was full of determination: it accompanied ByteDance through multiple cycles all the way, witnessing the domestic business Douyin reaching the top and TikTok becoming a hit overseas. Even after ByteDance's valuation rose to hundreds of billions of US dollars later, General Atlantic still stuck to its position, "not blindly arbitrage, not cash out in the short term."

This rock-solid investment also made Zhang Yiming and Bill Ford real friends.

II

If we interpret why General Atlantic could bet on ByteDance accurately, the answer is by no means accidental luck.

As one of the earliest overseas PEs that have been deeply engaged in the Chinese market and "bullish on China", General Atlantic landed in China as early as 2000, building a localized professional team. The so-called "localization" means putting aside all distractions and growing again in another region.

In 2000, China's venture capital market was still in a wild state, and the development of the internet industry had just sprouted. General Atlantic quickly built its China team, abandoned the common problem of foreign capital's "migratory bird-style investment", did not create personal hype, did not participate in industry grandstanding, and devoted itself to finding value entrepreneurs. In 2004, Lenovo's plan to acquire IBM's PC business was widely questioned by the outside world, and the capital market also considered it a risky acquisition.

Wall Street was almost collectively bearish, and put forward the view that "Lenovo's management capabilities and globalization experience are not enough to take over IBM." General Atlantic held a different view. Feng Wenshi, the former head of General Atlantic's China region, had associated with Liu Chuanzhi, founder of Lenovo, very early. He and his team provided Lenovo with an independent M&A risk assessment report, helping the management re-examine the advantages and disadvantages of this transaction.

Feng Wenshi was optimistic about Lenovo's leading position in China's local PC market. Even without acquiring IBM, Lenovo itself was a high-quality asset. Even so, the outside world was still not optimistic about this transaction. General Atlantic was very firm, entered the market against the trend, and used its capital and globalization resources to promote the super acquisition in the history of China's PC industry. In addition to Lenovo, General Atlantic also "saved" Alibaba and Meituan.

"The world only knows that Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank, gave Alibaba its first bucket of gold." Few people know that Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba who is considered "omnipotent", once encountered a "life-and-death" inflection point in his career. In 2005, in order to get Alibaba on the right track, Jack Ma signed a famous agreement: "Yahoo invested 1 billion US dollars plus Yahoo China's business in exchange for 40% of Alibaba's shares."

After this agreement, Yahoo became the largest shareholder of Alibaba. But this agreement also planted a "time bomb". In October 2010, "Yahoo's voting rights will automatically rise to 39%". Once triggered, Yahoo will have the right to speak that overwhelms the management and SoftBank, and Jack Ma may lose control of Alibaba. At this time, Jack Ma was very passive. He needed friendly and firm long-term financial investors to gradually dilute and balance Yahoo's dominant position. However, few institutions in the capital market dared to offend Yahoo. General Atlantic stood out again, joined four other overseas growth capital firms to form a consortium to inject capital into Alibaba in time, resolving the equity crisis.

The situation of Meituan is similar. In 2014, the Hundred Group War came to an end, more than 5000 group buying platforms died by 99%, leaving only Meituan and Dianping facing each other. The two sides fought fiercely, and the group buying track extended to the food delivery track, staging rounds of subsidy wars that were popular among the public.

At the critical moment of the fierce battle, the outcome was only a split second away. General Atlantic took action again to lead a 300 million US dollar financing. The next year, Meituan and Dianping officially announced their merger, and the Hundred Group War ended with Meituan taking the dominant position and acquiring Dianping.

SHEIN, the "first share of cross-border e-commerce" that went public not long ago, is also very grateful to General Atlantic. Chinese companies' "going global" is not as smooth as the outside world imagines. The complex overseas geopolitical environment and compliance issues are very damaging to "going global" companies. After General Atlantic took a stake in SHEIN, it soon became a escort for its globalization breakthrough, compliance, European and American markets, and geopolitical changes.

III

Although General Atlantic is an overseas PE, it respects Chinese entrepreneurs, "only helps, not makes trouble."

Counting carefully, General Atlantic has been in China for more than 20 years, and has invested in more than 40 super companies in total.

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA, it is not at all like an "American institution that chases hot spots to make dreams". It "does not bet on dark horses, does not chase bubbles, does not follow cycles, does not covet short-term gains." It is completely opposite to the mainstream "aggressive" investment style on Wall Street.

In overseas investment textbooks, the typical style of Wall Street PE is widely spread: "PE will gradually launch proxy fights, force the board of directors to replace people, eat up the shares held by entrepreneurs, take control of the company in a disguised form, then split the business/restructure for IPO, pursuing short-term returns." General Atlantic, however, sticks to its position when others are frantically chasing hot spots, takes heavy positions against the trend when others panic and leave the market, and gets returns with patience.

This style is very similar to what Zhang Lei, founder of GL Ventures known as the "No.1 PE", said: "Be a friend of time". But General Atlantic does not "be friends with time blindly". It enters the market when it is the right time, and comes when entrepreneurs need it.

To be honest, General Atlantic is very "unique". It is essentially an American institution, but it often helps Chinese entrepreneurs resist the "unfair" competition and encirclement and suppression from American companies. However, more people may wonder a question: why do PE institutions want to go public?

In 2026, a "ultimate transformation" took place in the global PE industry. Veteran PEs including Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Carlyle and TPG all landed on the U.S. stock market for IPO. If we break it down, the author believes there are several reasons. The first is to break the shackles of the fund cycle and unlock "perpetual capital". What does that mean? PE has an inherent shortcoming, or any financial VC/PE equity investment institution has an inherent shortcoming.

Normally, the duration of a primary market US dollar fund is no more than 12 years. Upon maturity, it must complete the investment and exit cycle, liquidate dividends, and raise funds again. The capital source of PE is "own capital + external LP fundraising", which mainly relies on LPs, and the sentiment of LPs determines the life cycle of PE. If a PE goes public, it will no longer be constrained by LPs, and can raise funds and issue bonds in the secondary market.

General Atlantic makes excellent investments with great patience, accompanying entrepreneurs to move forward. But it is difficult for it to really break away from the constraints of the cycle. The second reason is to amplify the global brand momentum and intensify the "Matthew Effect" in the industry. At present, the global primary market presents the feature of "extreme differentiation", that is, "top institutions take 80% of high-quality capital, star projects and industrial resources, while tail institutions are eliminated at an accelerated pace." This will suppress the liquidity of the primary market: high-quality projects are competed for by top institutions, project valuations are driven up, and capital demand expands.

LPs' funds have agreements and restrictions, which are not as easy as raising funds from U.S. investors in the secondary market. General Atlantic's listing on the U.S. stock market is equivalent to obtaining a global top credit card, which can not only access new global capital, but also further widen the gap with small and medium-sized institutions and consolidate its global position. The most precious "long-termism" in the venture capital circle is not reveling along the trend, but sticking against the trend and moving forward quietly with accumulated strength.

IPO is not the end, but a brand new starting point. We look forward to more outstanding performance of General Atlantic in China.

This article is from WeChat official account "Investor", author: Yunfan, authorized for release by 36Kr.