While Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic were dominating the headlines this summer during talks between ByteDance and US regulators over the fate of TikTok in the country, KKR’s Henry Kravis was making discreet calls. Behind the scenes, the group’s co-chief executive was sounding out Zhang Yiming, the Chinese group’s founder, to see whether his investment firm also had a role to play, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
KKR was one of three lead investors in ByteDance’s $3bn capital raise in 2018, part of a series of tech deals in Asia that it has quietly pursued over the past few years. “Asia is a winner-take-all market,” says one person with close ties to the New York-based group, which declined to comment citing fundraising rules. “KKR goes from country to country to identify national champions and invest behind them at an early stage.”
Now KKR is reaching the final round of capital raising for its $12.5bn Asian buyout fund, its fourth such vehicle and what will probably be the largest ever for the region.