[citation needed] On 12 March 2012, Youku reached an agreement to merger with Tudou in a stock-for-stock transaction, the new entity being named Youku Tudou Inc.[7] In 2014, it had more than 500 million monthly active users, with 800 million daily video views.

[9] Youku was founded by Victor Koo (Gu Yongqiang),[10][11] former President of Chinese Internet portal Sohu.

[15] Later that year, Youku became the sole online video provider embedded in the China Edition of Mozilla Firefox.

The stock closed at $33.44 on its first day of trading giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $3.3 billion.

Victor Koo was once an employee of Bain & Company, one of the most prominent management consulting firms in the world.

[18] In December 2018, the company announced a layoff of the president of the unit Yang Weidong due to his assistance to the police in investigation about the case of seeking economic benefits.