(FILE)

Tang Yan, founder and CEO of social networking platform Momo Inc., has become China's newest IT billionaire after Momo made its trading debut in Nasdaq, New York City, on December 11, raising $216 million for its U.S. initial public offering.

Tang was born in 1979 in central China's Hunan Province. He graduated from university in 2000, majoring in architecture, and worked in the building industry till 2002. Tang joined Netease, one of China's leading websites, as an editor in 2003. In April 2011, he was appointed editor in chief of Netease. Five months later, he resigned and founded Momo.

Today, the Beijing-based Momo application allows over 180 million users to connect with each other. Users can chat with one another through the platform—and find people within their geographical vicinity or through shared-interest groups that are also location based—Momo is backed by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba.