An expansion push for short-form video service TikTok has proven costly for parent ByteDance, which saw losses triple to more than $7 billion in 2021, according to an internal document leaked from the private company. ByteDance revenue grew by almost 80 percent in 2021, to $61.7 billion, and the company did manage to eke out an operating profit for Q1 2022, reports say, a significant benchmark. TikTok crossed the one billion subscriber threshold in less than five years — faster than any other social media firm. The company’s latest stock buyback plan puts its market valuation at $300 billion.

ByteDance issued the financials internally to facilitate the issuance of restricted stock to more than 30,000 company employees, a process that began in August. Reuters on Friday characterized the move as “putting a floor under the $300 billion valuation,” and called it “a good show despite a stalled initial public offering plan, a global tech rout, and a politically difficult reception for its popular short-video streaming app.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, ByteDance was launched in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, a Chinese entrepreneur. Since then, it has attracted “billions of dollars from global investors including” U.S. firms KKR & Co., Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic.

A 2020 fundraising round included Fidelity Investments, and the company was expected to introduce a U.S. IPO of TikTok that year. The plan was tabled when the Trump White House opposed the move.

In 2021 reports circulated that ByteDance would go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022, which hasn’t happened. Last month, Reuters reported ByteDance is spending up to $3 billion on its current stock buyback plan, which when combined with the employee stock incentive program the news agency says should “help keep investors and employees onside” despite the stalled IPO plans.

ByteDance “cost of sales” totaled $27.4 billion in 2021, a 79 percent increase over the prior year, reports WSJ, which says the information was included “among the more than 100 pages of financial disclosures” distributed to employees participating in the stock program.

Offsetting revenue growth, WSJ explains, were 2021 expenses including “$14.6 billion in research and development spending, $19.2 billion in selling and marketing expenses and $75.6 billion in market-value changes on a range of convertible securities.”

ByteDance revenue “reached nearly $18.3 billion for the first three months of 2022, up almost 54 percent compared to a year prior,” WSJ reports, noting that a new fiscal austerity resulted in ByteDance reducing net loss by 84 percent for the period, to $4.7 billion, from $29.1 billion a year prior.

Reuters says the $300 billion valuation “implies its equity is worth 3.2 times its 2022 sales, assuming ByteDance’s full-year revenue grows to $95 billion on the back of the same 54 percent year-on-year pace it achieved in the first quarter,” a multiple it calls “in line with Facebook owner Meta Platforms.”