It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that Los Angeles-based Triller, a company in the process of raising between $200m and $300m to fuel its expansion – having previously secured a roster of investors ranging from Snoop Dogg to Marshmello manager Moe Shalizi – might be spending a few dollars on marketing.
Especially so when you learn that the company issued a press release on Sunday (August 2), citing data from analytics firm Sensor Tower, to announce that its app has hit No.1 in all categories on the App store in 50 countries this week, including the United States, UK, Brazil, Germany, France and Australia.
Yet this feat, according to a LinkedIn post published by Triller CEO Mike Lu yesterday (August 4), was achieved “with $0 marketing spend”.
Triller also revealed in its press release that it seen its number of user downloads increase by over 20 times in the last week alone, reaching over 250 million downloads worldwide.
This news follows Triller’s significant growth in India after TikTok was banned the market, where Triller also claimed to have not spent “a dime” on marketing.
Triller’s growth in the US in particular follows several challenging weeks for its key rival TikTok, which is potentially facing a ban in the market by September 15.
Microsoft currently in talks to acquire the ByteDance-owned app, and US president Donald Trump is demanding a cut of those proceeds to be paid to the US Treasury.
In addition, Triller filed a lawsuit against TikTok last week for patent infringement.
Triller also announced last week that Josh Richards, a TikTok star with over 20m followers, has been appointed as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, and will be transitioning from TikTok to Triller, citing concerns about how the app manages user data.
Richards isn’t the only TikTok influencer to make the jump to Triller. TikTok stars Griffin Johnson, Noah Beck and Anthony Reeves also signed on as Triller advisors, each of them expected to bring millions of followers from TikTok with them.
Triller also recently secured exclusive streaming rights to a Mike Tyson series which will document his return to the sport.
Commenting on the app’s latest results, Mike Lu said: “We couldn’t be more thrilled for this recognition and are excited to be embraced with such diversity. It aligns with our guiding principle: Triller- where you do you.”
Triller, in which all three major music companies own stakes, has previously raised over $37m and is majority owned by Ryan Kavanaugh and Bobby Sarnevesht’s Proxima.
Its last major funding round came in October last year, when it raised $28m.
Triller says that, in June, it hit 50 million monthly active users around the world, “surpassing TikTok’s user count when it was sold to ByteDance for $1 billion in 2017″
Meanwhile, the National Music Publishers Association suggested last week that the platform has not properly licensed all of its music.Music Business Worldwide
