TikTok Owner Now Aiming to Expand Into U.S. Enterprise Software Market

If some American politicians and regulators had their way, TikTok would be banned in the U.S. Executives at TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, though, appear so unconcerned by the threat that they’re trying to expand into a new business in the U.S.—selling software for businesses.

ByteDance is stepping up its hiring in the U.S. for its enterprise software business, Lark, whose offerings include productivity software similar to Google Docs and Sheets as well as tools for Slack-like work messaging, videoconferencing, project management and human resources management. Lark’s software is designed to compete with similar offerings from Microsoft and Google as well as more specialized competitors like Slack, Asana, Workday and Zoom. Its new hires in the U.S. this year have included a customer experience manager from Salesforce, an enterprise account executive from Verkada and a business development manager from 6sense.