Exclusive: Kim Jun-koo, CEO of Webtoon Entertainment, said the Nasdaq listing will strengthen the company’s efforts to adapt its IP into different formats and create more opportunities to work with partners around the world.
The company ended its first trading day at $23, up 9.5% from its IPO price of $21, giving it a market capitalization of about $2.9 billion. In exclusive interviews with Deadline, company executives revealed how the new funding will help fuel growth in the U.S. and detailed the company’s revenue-sharing model with the wealth of creators on the platform.
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“We have an advantageous position in Korea and a strong foothold in Japan. We are also in the early stages of a huge market opportunity in North America,” said Kim Yong-soo, the company’s chief strategy officer. “Listing in the U.S. will help us accelerate our growth in this market and capture more users and more opportunities with local players in the U.S. We believe this is a big moment with great growth potential for our company.”
Yongsoo Kim said the Nasdaq listing would also increase the company’s ability to hire more staff to strengthen its advertising, data and technology businesses.Last week’s IPO offering was aimed at immediately adding about $315 million to the company’s account.
“The funding will give us more opportunities, allow us to invest more in terms of data and technological innovation, and also use the funding to test and experiment more with our content,” Kim said.
Junkuo Kim said there are typically three routes for Webtoon Entertainment’s IP adaptations: licensing, co-production, and specific in-house production. “We are very careful about this because we are a platform company and the production business is not our primary business,” he said. But he added that some major titles require full creative control to achieve “significant business benefits.”
Webtoon Entertainment’s ventures include webnovel platform Wattpad, US-based Wattpad Webtoon Studios, South Korea-based Studio N, Studio Lico, Webtoon Unscrolled, Line Manga and eBookJapan.
Recent notable projects include: Black Knight, Bloodhoundand Let’s meet again in our 19th life Not just Netflix ConnectingDirected by Takashi Miike on Disney Plus Marry my husband On Amazon Prime. Sweet Home It will also premiere on Netflix in July.
Junku Kim said a significant percentage of Korean content on Netflix comes from webtoons, showing great potential for adaptation into series and films.
Creative Ownership
Webtoon adaptations have proven popular among streamers as their stories have a solid fanbase, and Junku Kim said the wealth of data available from the webtoon platform helps them analyze what types of stories are well-received by each streamer and different audience demographics.
Webtoon has various revenue-sharing agreements with creators around the world depending on factors such as advertising revenue, traffic, licensing fees, and production costs. Creators retain ownership of their IP, with Webtoon taking a minority stake, the company revealed.
Kim said the biggest challenge the company faces is understanding generative AI and the role it plays in the webcomic ecosystem. While webtoon creators don’t strictly use AI for content generation, it is integrated into some technical aspects of their workflow to improve productivity.
The Webtoon platform has approximately 170 million monthly active users as of Q1 2024 and approximately 24 million creators worldwide, including both professional and amateur content creators.
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