– The largest external investment attracted by a content company in Japan this year
– Know-how for localizing ‘Webtoon’, solid business structure, and reflection of future growth potential
– Recognized for its unrivaled competitiveness in the world’s No. 1 comic book market by maintaining its No. 1 sales position and growing rapidly.
Kakao Japan (CEO Kim Jae-yong), the world’s No. 1 cartoon app piccoma, announced on the 20th that it had attracted 600 billion won worth of investment from global investment company Anchor Equity Partners and leading overseas sovereign wealth funds.
The investment will be made in the form of acquiring new shares of common stock issued by Kakao Japan through a paid-in capital increase through third-party allocation, and is the largest external investment attracted by a content company in Japan this year. Kakao Japan’s corporate value resulting from this investment is approximately 8.8 trillion won.
With this investment, Piccoma was recognized for its know-how and strategy in expanding the digital market share of ‘manga’ in Japan and in localizing ‘webtoon’, a Korean business. In addition, it is meaningful in that it has proven infinite growth potential, including a solid business structure based on ‘Mateba ¥0 (0 yen if you wait)’ and expectations for original content to be introduced in the future.
Piccoma has maintained the top spot in comics app sales since July of last year in Japan, the world’s No. 1 comics market with over 6 trillion won, widening the gap with its competitors.
In Japan, where books are the main focus in the digital manga market as well as existing paper comics, the serialized sales method of each episode and the mobile-oriented webtoon were harmoniously combined. Sales of Japanese digital manga, a local content, are showing higher growth than other competitors, and in particular, webtoon content showed remarkable growth, with annual sales in 2020 increasing more than six times compared to the previous year.
Thanks to successful marketing, including TV advertisements that began in late April to coincide with Japan’s Golden Week, daily transaction volume reached 4.5 billion won on May 5, breaking the all-time record.
Kakao Japan established studios in Japan and Korea to further accelerate the global webtoon craze. The main characters are ‘SHERPA STUDIO’, established with Daewon Media’s subsidiary Storyjak in Tokyo, Japan, and ‘Studio One Pick’ in Seoul, Korea. These two locations will discover excellent creators from both countries and expand to the world together with Piccoma. We are producing original webtoon content.
Jaeyong Kim, CEO of Kakao Japan, said, “It is encouraging that the competitiveness of Piccoma, which has brought a fresh shock to the global content industry by rising to the global No. 1 position just four years after its launch, has been highly evaluated by global investors,” adding, “We will be more bold in fostering the Piccoma platform and creators.” “By investing, we will take the lead in establishing manga and webtoons as global main content,” he said.
Kakao Senior Vice President (CIO) Bae Jae-hyun, who led the investment attraction, said, “This deal is significant in that it is the first investment attraction of an overseas subsidiary of Kakao and the largest value and largest investment attraction among Japanese content companies this year.” “Based on our resources, we plan to lead the market by actively securing IPs that are competitive not only in Japan but also globally, and expand Kakao’s global influence by investing aggressively in new business areas where we can excel.”
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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