Who Is Behind RedNote, the Chinese App Attracting TikTok Users Worried About the Ban?

[ad_1] Confronted with the potential lack of TikTok, lots of of 1000's of individuals in america have downloaded Xiaohongshu, one in all China’s hottest social media apps.

Additionally known as RedNote, Xiaohongshu has been probably the most downloaded free app in america on the Apple retailer since Tuesday. The app lets customers share brief movies in addition to nonetheless, text-based posts, which generally entice lengthy, Reddit-like remark threads. Like TikTok, Xiaohongshu is powered by a proprietary algorithm, which recommends content material focused to maintain folks scrolling.

Right here’s what we learn about who's behind the corporate.

Xiaohongshu is operated by Xingyin Data Know-how Ltd., which relies in Shanghai and owned by the billionaire entrepreneurs Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu. Xingyin holds a minority stake in a consulting and leisure firm based mostly in Henan that can also be funded by the provincial authorities, in accordance with Wirescreen, an information platform.

As of final July, Xiaohongshu had raised practically $1 billion because it was based over a decade in the past, in accordance with Crunchbase, from buyers together with Alibaba, HongShan and Tencent, the Chinese language web large behind the nation’s most ubiquitous app, WeChat.

Xiaohongshu caters primarily to individuals who converse Mandarin, and till this week was little identified exterior China, the place a overwhelming majority of its customers are based mostly. Over the previous few days, the corporate has posted a number of job openings in search of folks with fluent English abilities whereas it scrambles to accommodate the inflow of self-described TikTok refugees.

Folks flocking to obtain the app in america mentioned, in interviews and on the app, that they needed to point out they didn't share Washington’s issues about TikTok’s ties to China.

However, like ByteDance, Xiaohongshu is a privately held firm that's sure by Chinese language legislation, together with legal guidelines that will require it to show over information to the Chinese language authorities if requested to take action.