Naver Webtoon’s Nasdaq IPO sets global foothold for webtoon business

[Photo by Yonhap]

South Korea’s Naver Webtoon Ltd. successfully listed on the U.S. Nasdaq on Thursday (local time), a significant step towards establishing the webtoon industry as a mainstream part of the global entertainment market.

“When we started webtoons 20 years ago, it was difficult even to explain what they were,” said Kim Jun-koo, chief executive officer of Webtoon Entertainment Inc., the parent company of Naver Webtoon, at the Nasdaq building in Times Square, New York, the United States. ”But things are different now. I would like to thank our staff and creators for their hard work.“

He added, ”This IPO is a journey for the next stage. Our vision is to become the world‘s leading tech platform.“

Lee Hae-jin, the founder of Korean tech giant Naver Corp., made a surprise appearance at the Nasdaq opening bell ceremony.

This listing comes 19 years after Naver Webtoon officially launched its service in December 2005, marking a new milestone for Korean content.

Being listed on the Nasdaq, the heart of the capital market, symbolizes that Naver Webtoon is now recognized as a truly global company.

The company’s success in raising significant funds in the major North American market is expected to spur other platform companies around the world to grow their business to a larger scale.

As a pioneer in the industry, Naver Webtoon is expected to use the proceeds raised through the IPO to maintain a significant lead over its competitors.

According to the securities report submitted by the company, the funds will mainly be used to invest in future technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), accelerating global business growth, and investing in content intellectual property (IP).

Naver Webtoon is expected to accelerate the production of movies and TV series utilizing webtoon and web novel IP.

[Graphics by Song Ji-yoon and Yoon Yeon-hae]

Naver Webtoon has around 170 million monthly active users (MAU) in over 150 countries. It also boasts 24 million creators and 7.8 million monthly paying users.

Successfully integrating this ecosystem with technology will solidify its position as a ”story tech“ company as well as boost its corporate value, industry insiders noted.

Webtoon Entertainment, having secured over 400 billion won ($288.63 million) in funds, is expected to expand its IP business by turning web novels into webtoons and webtoons into dramas and movies.

There are also speculations that Naver may negotiate IP business partnerships with global content companies.

Sources noted that Naver Webtoon is also exploring various ways to combine its IP with AI technologies accumulated by its parent company, Naver.

For example, the company launched Character Chat, an AI chatbot service that allows interaction with webtoon characters. It is also preparing to launch an AI caricature service using webtoon IP.

An IT industry insider noted that if Naver Webtoon succeeds in increasing user engagement and replacing creative tasks with AI technology, it could enhance productivity in terms of cost and expand its webtoon ecosystem, leading to a reassessment of the value of Naver’s AI technology used in webtoons.