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ByteDance Doubao + Seed (豆包 / Seed)

Consumer Feedback FlywheelTotem · Seed & sprout

Known for: ByteDance's Doubao app, Seed research, video models, Volcano Engine calls, and on-device agent experiments.

ByteDance's Doubao/Seed foundation-model org (Beijing + Bay Area). Wu Yonghui (吴永辉, ex-Google DeepMind VP) joined as Seed lead February 2025; recent coverage emphasizes Doubao's consumer feedback loop, Seedance video, Volcano Engine token share, and ByteDance's experiments around phone/on-device agent access.

Founded
2023
Location
Beijing
Founders
Not listed
Parent / predecessor
ByteDance (字节跳动)
WebsiteGitHub
Doubao 1.5 ProDoubao 2.0Seedance 2.0 (video)Doubao-Seed-CodeSeed1.5-VL
Revenue
Not disclosed
AI-specific revenue unavailable
via 36Kr
ARR
N/A
Usage and cloud-channel signal; Seed/Doubao revenue not disclosed
via 36Kr
Valuation
Parent-owned
ByteDance-owned team; no standalone lab valuation used
Funding raised
Internal
Internal platform funding, not comparable to venture rounds
Key people
Notable alumni & departures
ZHU Yibo (朱亦博)YANG Jianchao (杨建超)FENG Jiashi (冯佳时)QIAO Mu (乔木)

News & coverage

Notable recent updates, newest first.

ISR 1 hour
RevenueJun 6, 2026
Doubao (Chinese: 豆包)

Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) lost 6.1M monthly active users after introducing paid subscriptions.

9am 1am | Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) loses 6.1M MAU after going paid; Anthropic urges slowing AI development
36Kr (36氪)
ProductJun 4, 2026
ByteDance Doubao + Seed

Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) announces a professional tier with specialized services, denying free-tier downgrade rumors amid Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) competition.

Qwen (Chinese: 通义千问) pushes hard, Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) fights user retention war: denies downgrade, adds shopping features, plans pro version
Zhidongxi (智东西)
RevenueJun 3, 2026
ByteDance Doubao + Seed

Volcano Engine raises 2026 MaaS revenue target to ¥15B; Seedance 2.0 hits ¥1B monthly revenue.

36Kr Exclusive | Volcano Engine raises MaaS revenue target to ¥15B for 2026, Seedance 2.0 monthly revenue exceeds ¥1B
36Kr (36氪)
LeadershipJun 2, 2026
ByteDance Doubao + Seed

ByteDance Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) research scientist Gu Quanquan departs, leading the LLM optimization and scaling team.

ByteDance Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) pre-training big shot announces departure
Zhidongxi (智东西)
ProductJun 1, 2026
ByteDance Doubao + Seed

ByteDance launches Coze 3.0 AI agent platform supporting multi-agent collaboration and third-party integration.

ByteDance launches Coze 3.0 AI agent platform with multi-agent and third-party integration
IT Zhijia (IT之家)
RevenueJun 1, 2026
ByteDance Doubao + Seed

Doubao (Chinese: Doubao) plans to launch paid subscriptions in late June at 68–500 RMB/month, integrating with Douyin (international version: TikTok (international version of Douyin)) e-commerce to drive monetization.

Sources say Doubao (Chinese: 豆包) expected to launch paid content in late June, accelerate integration with Douyin (international version: TikTok) e-commerce
IT Zhijia (IT之家)
RevenueMay 21, 2026
Doubao

Seedance 2.0 video AI model achieves commercial viability with high user willingness to pay.

TMTPost (钛媒体)