Video sharing service Byte has been acquired by competitor Clash

Barely a year after it was launched, Byte, the spiritual successor to the wildly popular short video sharing service Vine, has been sold to TikTok competitor Clash for an undisclosed amount, according to reports.

Earlier this month, Clash announced the acquisition in a blog post that stated that the Byte App and its suite of creator tools would officially join the Clash family. A report from the Verge states that the Clash wants to bring in new monetisation features (such as tipping and recurring payments) into the newly acquired Byte App and then re-brand it into a new Clash app.

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Byte was launched in January 2020, over six months before Clash was released. The app was only available in certain countries, known for its privacy friendly stance with few permissions requested and offered a simple and intuitive interface. The app was created by a former Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, who told users on a community forum that the market for apps like Byte had become very saturated, and that while the company was discussing retaining a few employees, most of the Byte team would be moving on to Discord.

Hofmann also said he would remain an advisor at Clash, but would be ‘taking a break from starting and running a company’ after nine years and would also be joining the Discord team. Meanwhile, Clash co-founder Brendon McNerney wrote that while some may be surprised by the move, “it makes perfect sense for creators”. He adds that both the Byte and Clash apps will remain active for the time being, but encouraged used to download Byte as latter will be unavailable to download for an ‘extended period’.

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“It’s an honor to be building the future of monetization alongside Alexis and Byte. Having gotten my start on Vine, it feels like a full-circle moment to have Dom join as an advisor on the team,” said Brendon McNerney, Co-Founder and CEO of Clash. “With a team this deeply experienced, we’re confident that creators will be excited to use the tools we’re building.”