Webtoon Leisure Bosses On How Nasdaq Itemizing Will Increase U.S. Alternatives & Creator Income Share Mannequin

EXCLUSIVE: Webtoon Entertainment CEO Junkoo Kim has mentioned itemizing on Nasdaq will bolster efforts to adapt the corporate’s IPs into completely different codecs and improve alternatives to collaborate with international companions.

The corporate closed its first buying and selling day at $23, marking a 9.5% improve from its IPO price of $21, with the corporate’s market capitalization hovering round $2.9B. In an unique interview with Deadline, its bosses revealed how the brand new money would assist drive development within the U.S. and supplied coloration across the firm’s income share mannequin with the wealth of creators on the platform.

“We’re dominant in Korea, have a robust foothold in Japan, and we’re within the earliest stage of an enormous market alternative in North America,” mentioned Yongsoo Kim, the corporate’s Chief Technique Officer. “Itemizing within the U.S. will assist speed up our development on this market, serving to us to get extra customers and extra alternatives with U.S. native gamers. We imagine that it is a large second for us with large development potential.”

Yongsoo Kim mentioned that the Nasdaq itemizing will even improve the corporate’s means to rent extra expertise to strengthen its promoting enterprise in addition to the info and expertise fronts. Final week’s IPO provide was designed to instantly add round $315M into its accounts.

“Capital will give us extra alternatives, which can enable us to speculate extra by way of information and technological innovation and in addition take a look at and experiment extra with our content material utilizing this capital,” mentioned Yongsoo Kim.

Junkoo Kim mentioned that there are normally three routes for variations of Webtoon Leisure IP — licensing, co-productions and sure in-house productions. “We’re very selective in doing this as a result of the manufacturing enterprise just isn’t our predominant enterprise — we’re a platform firm,” he mentioned. Nonetheless, he added some key titles require full inventive management to realize a “large enterprise upside.”

Ventures underneath the Webtoon Leisure umbrella embody webnovel platform Wattpad, the US-based Wattpad Webtoon Studios, Korea-based Studio N, Studio Lico, Webtoon Unscrolled, Line Manga and eBookJapan.

Current high-profile tasks embody variations of Black Knight, Bloodhounds, and See You In My nineteenth Life on Netflix, in addition to Join, from acclaimed director Takashi Miike on Disney+ and Marry My Husband on Amazon Prime. The third season of Candy Dwelling will even premiere on Netflix in July.

Junkoo Kim mentioned {that a} good proportion of Netflix’s Korean content material comes from webtoons, demonstrating the deep potential for variations into sequence and movies.

Inventive possession

Webtoon variations have confirmed widespread with streamers as there’s an in-built and confirmed fanbase for the tales. Junkoo Kim additionally acknowledged that having a wealth of knowledge from the Webtoon platform proves useful in analyzing what tales will work for every streamer and completely different viewers segments.

Webtoon has completely different contracts with its international creators on income shares, relying on components comparable to promoting income, site visitors in addition to licensing and manufacturing charges. Creators preserve possession of their IP, with Webtoon holding a minority stake, the corporate revealed.

Kim mentioned that the most important problem the corporate faces is generative AI and determining the position that it’ll play within the webcomics ecosystem. Whereas Webtoon creators strictly don’t use AI to generate content material, AI has been included into just a few technical points of the workflow to extend productiveness.

The Webtoon platform has roughly 170 million month-to-month lively customers, as of Q1 2024, and round 24 million international creators, together with each skilled and beginner content material makers.