Korean gaming entrepreneur Kim Jae-young joins billionaire ranks

Kim Jae-young, founder and chief executive of Lionheart Studio Corp., the company behind South Korea’s most popular mobile game Odin, has joined the ranks of billionaires.

His rise to the wealthy status came after Kakao Games Corp., via its European affiliate, bought a 30.37% stake in Lionheart for 1.2 trillion won ($916 million) at the end of June, valuing the company at near 4 trillion won. Kakao Games purchased most of the stake from Kim.

Kakao Games has steadily increased its stake in Lionheart since it first bought 8.3% of the company for 5 billion won in August 2018. It now owns 54.95% of Lionheart.

Kim currently has a 34.67% stake in Lionheart. He also owns 2.87% of Kakao Games, which saw its sales surge last year on the back of Odin: Valhalla Rising, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

Kim’s current net worth is estimated at 2.22 trillion won, or $1.7 billion, according to an estimate by US business magazine Forbes.

Developed by Lionheart and published by Kakao Games, Odin was released in Korea in June of last year, and instantly became the country's No.1 game in terms of revenue, overtaking NCSOFT Corp.'s Lineage M, which had topped the list for more than four years.

LIONHEART, A UNICORN STARTUP

Last year, Lionheart joined the ranks of unicorn startups, or private companies with a corporate value of $1 billion or more.

Boosted by Odin, Kakao Games’ mobile gaming revenue rose to a record high of 410.5 billion won in the third quarter of last year, up 359% from a year earlier.

Lionheart’s Odin is particularly popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

Odin: Valhalla Rising fetched 50 billion won in revenue in just a month after its launch in Taiwan last February.

Kakao Games plans to take the mobile game to Japan by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Lionheart is preparing to go public this year.

In April, the company sent requests for proposals to major brokerage companies to select underwriters for its initial public offering.

Kim founded Lionheart in 2018 primarily with investments from Kakao Games and WeMade Co., the pioneer of the play-to-earn game in South Korea.

Write to Sungsu Bae at baebae@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.