TikTok is getting bigger, with the company behind the popular short-form moving into a new five-story, 120,00-square foot office in Culver City, California — putting it at the intersection of Los Angeles’ tech and media scene. Employees have begun moving into the new space this week.
The new space will have an open floor plan and comes with several conference rooms, a stadium-style presentation space, and terraces for working outside. TikTok’s office will also add a content-creation studio that’s expected to be completed this summer.
“Located between the innovative tech companies in Silicon Beach and the streaming content companies at Hayden tract, TikTok truly sits at the intersection of technology and entertainment, physically and figuratively,” Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok U.S., said in a statement. “While we are a global company, having a permanent office in LA speaks to our commitment to the U.S. market and deepens our bonds with the city, and the talent and companies, that call it home.”
TikTok’s L.A. team had been working in a temporary workspace until the new office, which was designed by Gensler, was completed.
The app, which has become especially popular among Gen Z users, specializes in clips that are 15 seconds or less — an evolutionary step up from Vine’s six-second maximum length. Users can style their clips with a myriad of filters, including face filters similar to Instagram and Snapchat. Like Snapchat, videos are also shot vertically on TikTok. According to data shared by Sensor Tower in November, TikTok has been downloaded nearly 124 million times in the U.S.
TikTok’s rapid growth has recently caught the eye of regulators, with the U.S. government opening a national security review into ByteDance, its Chinese parent company. Earlier this month, TikTok released its first “transparency report,” showing the Chinese government has made no requests to censor content or obtain user information, according to the company. The report came out about two months after TikTok banned — then un-banned — a teenager who went viral for criticizing the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.
Beyond its new L.A. office, TikTok has offices in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul and Tokyo.