Kakao to merge US webtoon, web novel platforms

South Korea’s Kakao Entertainment Co. is set to merge Tapas Media Inc. and Radish Fiction Inc., its webtoon and mobile novel platforms in North America, to maximize the global growth engine based on their content.

The US units’ boards of directors decided on the merger with Radish acquiring Tapas at a merger ratio of 1 to 18, according to Kakao Entertainment on Thursday.

“The merger between Tapas and Radish will be a turning point that is expected to lead to the evolution of the North American storytelling industry beyond a combination of platforms,” said Kakao Entertainment CEO Lee Jin-soo.

“We will spur growth to achieve goals to treble global transactions within three years and raise North American transactions to 500 billion won ($393 million).”

TO CREATE SYNERGY

The entertainment unit of South Korea’s mobile service giant Kakao Corp. bought Tapas and Radish in May last year to expand its content business in North America, the world’s top entertainment market that has a strong influence in the global content industry.

Tapas, founded in 2012 in San Francisco, is the first webtoon platform in North America and the No. 3 US digital comics provider, while Radish, a mobile English-language fiction platform established in 2016 in New York, has been rapidly growing with its group creation system.

Kakao Entertainment aims to create synergy in North America by combining their storytelling capabilities.

The merged entity, which Tapas Founder and CEO Chang Kim will lead, is set to control the world’s top Asian fantasy web novel platform Wuxiaworld acquired last year to maximize the synergy. However, the US-based platform will be independently operated.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.