Image Source: Visual China

BEIJING, June 7 (TMTPOST) — Chinese Internet giant ByteDance is considering selling a minority stake in Poizon, an online marketplace and community for sneakers, apparel, bags and watches, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

Sources said that the company is in talks with potential investors to divest a minority stake in Poizon. ByteDance reportedly hopes to sell its less than 10% stake to existing investors of Poizon.

Poizon is currently valued at over US$10 billion. Plans to sell the minority stake in Poizon have been slow at ByteDance after the company restructured its investment department earlier this year. Negotiations on selling the stake are still in the early phase. ByteDance might decide to keep the stake, sources said.

Both ByteDance and Poizon have not responded to requests for comments.

In 2015, Poizon launched a mobile application that provided information on fashion trends for users. The application later became an online marketplace for sneakers, fashion items and more. Poizon now has around 100 million monthly active users. The platform’s brand partners include Nike, Adidas and Nintendo.

The platform offers to authenticate products before they are resold, preventing users from unexpectedly buying fake or badly damaged products. The authenticating service is a unique feature that sets Poizon apart from other e-commerce platforms in China.

The majority of Poizon’s users are millennials and Gen-Z users. Users born in the 1990s account for over 75% of the platform’s user base.

On Poizon, users’ discussions focus on sneakers, fashion brands, toys and street culture. Poizon believes that user communities can help the platform facilitate user interaction and loyalty.

ByteDance had exited from several investments in the past year, streamlining its portfolio. Earlier this month, the company sold its stake in Indian news aggregation service provider Verse Innovation. In February, the company sold its securities business.