Zhang believed that Chinese smartphone users were having difficulty finding information in mobile apps available in 2012 and that the search giant Baidu was mingling search results with undisclosed advertising. His vision was to deliver relevant content to users through artificial intelligence-generated recommendations. Most venture capitalists, however, did not share his vision, and he was unable to secure funding until Susquehanna International Group agreed to invest in the startup. With little fanfare, ByteDance launched its video-sharing app TikTok (known as Douyin in China) in September 2015. The product was an instant hit with millennials and quickly gained popularity around the world. A year later, ByteDance purchased Musical.ly for $800 million and integrated it into TikTok.