Kakao Promotes Acquisition of US Web Novel Platform’Radish’… “War with Naver over IP”

Input 2021.04.04 20:40 | Revision 2021.04.04 20:42

Kakao (035720)Has been confirmed to be pursuing the acquisition of the global web novel platform Radish. It is interpreted as a move as the two companies are competing to secure intellectual property rights (IP) for box office content, such as Naver’s recent decision to acquire Canadian web novel platform Wattpad for about 650 billion won.

On the 4th, Kakao Entertainment said, “It is true that they are pursuing the acquisition of Radish.” Founded by CEO Seung-yoon Lee, who graduated from Oxford University in the UK in 2016, Radish is ranked 5th in terms of sales of web fiction platforms in the US.

Some say that Kakao’s move was a predicted procedure. Kakao Page, the predecessor of Kakao Entertainment, had already invested 76 billion won in July last year with SoftBank Ventures, seeing a high possibility of Radish. Kakao Page’s CEO Jinsoo Lee and others joined Radish as outside directors.

An industry official said, “Recently, Naver and Kakao are fighting to bring in writers and companies that have famous intellectual property rights (IPs) that can be converted into box office contents.” Said. In the industry, there is also a story that Kakao Entertainment is pursuing a plan to acquire Radish for about 400 billion won.