Online fiction app Radish is being bought for US$440 million by South Korean Internet conglomerate Kakao Corp, the two firms said yesterday, making a multi-millionaire of its 30-year-old founder only five years after he set it up.
The deal is one of two acquisitions that Kakao announced yesterday totaling nearly US$1 billion, as it seeks to expand in English-language markets.
Pay-to-read platform Radish presents serialized storytelling in bite-sized installments optimized for smartphones, with readers paying about US$0.20 to US$0.30 to access the next episode immediately, or wait for an hour to read it for free.
Likened to a Netflix for novels, Radish recruited in-house soap opera scriptwriters, including several Emmy Award winners, to “present the newest and brightest in entertaining, diverse serial fiction to readers,” the company said.
There are more than 50 such original series, and the category accounted for more than 90 percent of the company’s revenue of US$20 million last year, it said.
It also acts as a platform for independent writers, and says on its Web site that some make nearly US$40,000 every three months.
Founder and CEO Lee Seung-yoon set up the company after graduating from the University of Oxford in 2016, and attracted funding from investors, including Softbank Group Corp’s venture arm and Lowercase Capital LLC.
The unit buying his firm, Kakao Entertainment Corp, produces original content of its own from Web novels to TV series, movies and music, he said.
“The acquisition will realize my vision on a much larger scale and in a fascinating way,” Lee added.
Kakao said that it also acquired Webtoons mobile platform Tapas, which presents bite-sized comics and has published more than 90,000 stories, for US$510 million.
Founded in 2012 by South Korean entrepreneur Chang Kim, the San Francisco-based company has become a “magnet for Webtoon fans and content creators,” Kakao said in a press release.
Some South Korean Internet firms have struggled to expand their operations overseas and Kakao said that the deals would help it to “expand its original content business in North America and other English-speaking regions.”
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