Jordan Bevan
South Korea’s Kakao Entertainment announced on Tuesday that it was acquiring serialized fiction app Radish for $440 million. The acquisition deal approved by the board of directors and the majority of Radish shareholders is expected to be completed by next June.
The main reason Kakao wants to acquire Radish, which has significant popularity in English-speaking countries and millions of users, is to expand rapidly to English-speaking regions, especially in North America.
“Radish has firmly established itself as a leading web novel platform and yet we see even greater growth potential… With the combination of Kakao’s expertise in the IP business and Radish’s strong North American foothold, we are excited about what we can achieve together.” Kakao Entertainment CEO Jinsoo Lee said in a statement.
Along with Radish, Kakao Entertainment acquired the US-based comic book app Tapas for $510 million to expand its presence in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries.
“Just 80 Kakao IPs are responsible for half of Tapas’ sales… Based on such growth data, we determined that Kakao Entertainment’s growth formula in Korea or Japan was also possible in America and other English-speaking regions.” said Jinsoo Lee.
Founded in New York by Seung Yoon Lee and Yun Cho in 2015, Radish has received an investment of $ 66 million to date. According to the agreement between the two companies, Radish co-founder Seungyoon Lee will continue to serve as the company’s CEO and will also become the global strategy officer of Kakao Entertainment.
Comments
Loading…