Tech China Post #45

Bytedance, the Chinese company that makes the news aggregator app Toutiao, is acquiring Musical.ly close to $1B. Based in Shanghai, Musical.ly allows more than 60M teen users to create and share music videos.

TerraPower, the nuclear energy company founded by Bill Gates, is partnering with China National Nuclear Corporation to build a joint venture and company to develop the fourth generation nuclear technology. The fourth generation nuclear technology would use waste uranium for the reactors, creating more energy and thermal efficiency.

For the first time, China plans to allow foreign banks to own up to 51% of the onshore securities ventures. Currently, foreign banks can only own 49% of their operational entities in China and have to partner with domestic partner. By allowing foreign banks to have majority ownership of their operations in China, the banks will have much more control over decision making and business model.

China’s sharing economy is $520B in 2016 and has given rise to more startups focused on the sharing economy business model. Many analysts are predicting that there will be a wave of consolidation among the startups capitalizing on the sharing economy. There will also be many that would not survive given the classic margin erosion as competition heats up in a sharing economy business model. As the Foreign Affairs magazine points out: “Two years ago, there were barely any shareable bikes in Chinese cities. Today, there are over 16 million.”