Bilibili

Inspired by similar video sharing websites, Nico Nico Douga and AcFun, Xu Yi founded Bilibili in 2009. At the time, Xu Yi was an AcFun user and wanted to create a better website than AcFun. He spent three days creating a prototype website named Mikufans.cn as a fandom community of Hatsune Miku. As it grew, he reshaped the website to specialise in video sharing and launched it on 14 January 2010 with the name Bilibili, which is the nickname of the protagonist Mikoto Misaka in the anime A Certain Scientific Railgun. Bilibili also names many of its features after the anime. Bilibili celebrates Mikoto Misaka's birthday on its homepage every year on 2 May.

In 2011, Bilibili's domain name bilibili.us was revoked because of the domain registrar enforcing .us restrictions. As a result, Bilibili switched to bilibili.tv on 25 June 2011. Later that year, Xu Yi founded the startup, Hangzhou Huandian Technology based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, to develop and operate Bilibili.

In April 2012, Bilibili obtained an agreement with Nico Nico Douga to webcast the latest Chinese-subbed episodes of the newly airing anime Fate/Zero starting from 7 April. However, the program was censored after three episodes for being reported as unauthorised operations of Internet audio-video broadcasting services. Hangzhou Huandian Technology was administratively penalised and fined ¥10,000 by the local government.In August 2012, Bilibili started to display logos on its homepage to indicate its affiliation with the state-owned Shanghai Media Group and share the use of various content provider licenses in the hopes of avoiding future legal risks. Meanwhile, anonymous visitors to its website were redirected to a subdomain of Shanghai Media Group Broad Band subsidiary .

Since November 2014, Chen Rui , a billionaire tech magnate, has been CEO and chairman of the board of Bilibili. Chen has a degree from Chengdu University of Information Technology, was a general manager at Kingsoft, and founded internet companies like Cheetah Mobile and Beike Internet Security. Fortune named Chen Rui as one of China's 40 Under 40 in 2016. Chen was an early member of Bilibili's community and started watching anime on the platform in 2010, before he met Xu Yi in 2021 when he was convinced to become the company's earliest investor. He was the fifth member of the company.In October 2016, Bilibili announced that it will become the sponsor of the Shanghai Sharks basketball team. Bilibili chose to sponsor the Shanghai Sharks as both entities originate from Shanghai. The team later changed its name to Shanghai Bilibili.In December 2017, Bilibili purchased an e-sports team originally called IM for League of Legends and renamed it to Bilibili Gaming .In January 2018, Bilibili purchased the broadcasting rights to the spring competition season of LPL, League of Legends World Championship, and League of Legends Rift Rivals. In September of the same year, Bilibili purchased Hangzhou Spark, an Overwatch League team. The team took part in the 2019 Overwatch League season.In March 2018, Bilibili filed for an initial public offering of up to US$0.4 billion on the New York Stock Exchange . The company listed on the NASDAQ on 28 March 2018.On 23 March 2019, Bilibili announced at AnimeJapan that they had partnered with Sony-owned American anime distributor Funimation to jointly license anime titles for both the U.S. and Chinese markets.On 9 April 2020, Sony Corporation of America announced it will acquire a 4.98% minority stake in Bilibili for US$400 million, valuing Bilibili at US$8 billion. Upon completion of the deal, Sony and Bilibili signed an agreement for the expansion of anime and mobile games within the Chinese market. Later that year, Bilibili Esports, its e-sports arm, signed a partnership deal with Ping An Bank.Bilibili began its foray into original programming by joining the production of a fourth season for Informal Talks. In August 2020, Bilibili produced the show ''Rap for Youth''. In December 2020, it produced a competition programme for voice actors called Voice Monster. In December 2021, Bilibili had announced that subsequent seasons for Voice Monsters, Informal Talks, and Rap of Youth would be released in 2022. New programmes such as Crazy Artist would also be produced.In September 2020, the company launched Bilibili Video Satellite.On 3 February 2021, Bilibili announced it had acquired Shanghai Yarun Culture Communications Co., Ltd, the parent company of animation studio Haoliners Animation League and its subsidiaries. On 23 March 2021, it was reported that Bilibili would raise US$2.6 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange . This would be the company's secondary listing, as it is already public on the NASDAQ in New York City. On 29 March 2021, Bilibili was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at an opening price of HK$790.