The south Korean Kakao entertainment acquires US based Radish app for $440 million. The board of directors and majority of shareholders approved the acquisition.
The current move will allow Kakao’s fast-growing global webtoons and web novel business to strengthen and expand its reach in North America and other countries.
The American fiction app Radish has a fan base of millions for its Radish Original series a source in which Kakao can adapt its webtoons and video.
Radish which was found in the year 2016 gained its demand for serialised stories, spanning genres including romance, paranormal/sci-fi, LGBTQ+, horror, young adult, horror, mystery and thriller.
In 2018 the company began producing in-house original series alongside curated user-generated content and radish originals now account for more than 90% of revenue, according to the company.
To date Radish has raised about $72 million, Kakao entertainment which was previously called Kakao page Corp, Radish’s original fund investors included UTA, Lowercase Capital, Bertelsmann, K50 ventures, former Microsoft executive Charlie Songhurst billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen and BDA chairman Duncan Clark and author Amy Tan.
The founder and Chief Executive officer of Radish, Seung-yoon will continue to lead radish as well as serve as global strategy officer for Kakao entertainment, after the acquisition. It will retain day to day management autonomy and continue to operate under radish brand.
The Chief Executive Officer of Kakao Entertainment, Jinsoo Lee, said:
“Radish has firmly established itself as a leading web novel platform and yet we see even greater growth potential. It has found enormous success with fast-paced, original mobile content and undergone dramatic growth with a ten times increase in annual revenue last year,”
“With the combination of Kakao’s expertise in the IP business and Radish’s strong North American foothold, we are excited about what we can achieve together.”
