PWARP and PIF Provide Funding of $966 Mn to Kakao Entertainment Industry
According to the sources, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia and PWARP Investment of Singapore are among the sovereign wealth funds has reportedly announced that will provide funding of around USD 966 million to Kakao Entertainment.
If sources are to be believed, Storytelling platforms (webtoons and online novels), K-pop artist management, music streaming, and other media (TV series and movies) are all run by the entertainment division of South Korean internet giant Kakao.
As per media coverage, Kakao to continue its aggressive international expansion and make additional investments and acquisitions it will use the newly acquired capital.
Further, the company has established a webtoon platform in South Korea and the United States and, plans to broaden the range of stories and intellectual property to all licensed readers all over the world.
However, in a statement about the funding round, it focused primarily on its plans to expand across North America. In 2021, for instance, Kakao Entertainment bought several American media outlets like the serial fiction app Radish, the fantasy media portal Wuxiaworld, and the webtoon platform Tapas.
The company declares that it has 100,000 storytellers and is actively looking for ways to adapt successful novels and webcomics into television shows and feature films.
After combining Kakao M and Kakao Page in March 2021, Kakao Entertainment has raised a total of USD 1.2 billion, bringing the firm total funding to date to $1.2 billion.
According to Jae-Hyun Bae, the company’s chief investment officer, Kakao was able to raise such a large amount of capital is noteworthy.
Bae remarked that this demonstrated the future growth potential and global competitiveness of Kakao Entertainment’s distinctive intellectual property value chain, which includes many sub-sectors of the entertainment business.
