Kakao Entertainment today announced that it has raised US$966 million (KRW 1.2 trillion) from sovereign wealth funds including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Singapore-based Pwarp Investment. An entertainment subsidiary of South Korean internet giant Kakao, the company operates storytelling platforms (web novels and webtoons), music, management of K-pop artists, and other media (movies and TV series) businesses domestically and internationally. I’m here.
With the latest funding, the company plans to further push its international expansion and make more investments and acquisitions.
Having built Webtoon platforms in the US and South Korea, Kakao Entertainment aims to expand its storytelling content and intellectual property sources to a global audience, emphasizing its key growth strategy in North America. 2021, Kakao Entertainment got US-based storytelling platforms such as Tapas, a webtoon platform. Radish, a serial fiction app.When Ousia Worlda fantasy fiction platform.
The company claims to have 100,000 storytelling creators and will explore opportunities to turn popular webtoons and web novels into movies and TV series.
Jae-hyun Bae, Kakao’s chief investment officer, said in a statement that the company’s ability to raise funds of this magnitude is a significant deal amid global economic uncertainty. It is a testament to the global competitiveness and future potential of Kakao Entertainment’s unique intellectual property (IP) value chain that spans multiple categories of the entertainment industry. ”
