Kakao Entertainment Launches New North American Merged Entity 'Tapas Entertainment' as "Forward Base for K-Webtoons"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao Entertainment's North American subsidiary Tapas Media has completed a strategic merger with Radish Media and newly launched Tapas Entertainment. Kakao Entertainment plans to accelerate the global success of K-webtoons through the new company.

On the 5th, Kakao Entertainment announced that it had completed the merger process between North American webtoon platform Tapas Media and web novel intellectual property (IP) company Radish Media, and launched the new merged company Tapas Entertainment. Kakao Entertainment had previously announced plans to establish a merged company that unites North American Tapas and Radish, as well as Usia World, the world's largest Asian fantasy service and a subsidiary of Radish. This vision stems from the need for a ‘story IP hub’ to conduct flexible and systematic North American business to achieve steeper growth in North America, a key region for the global story IP business.

Collaborating with Over 100,000 Local Creators Starting with the ‘American Version of Novel Comics’

Kakao Entertainment explained that with the launch of Tapas Entertainment, it has established two foundations in North America, the world's largest entertainment market: a ‘global super IP discovery base’ and a ‘K-webtoon forward base.’

The beginning of global super IP discovery is the ‘American version of novel comics.’ The novel comics, first introduced by Kakao Entertainment, are considered a business model (BM) that led to significant growth in the domestic webtoon and web novel markets by turning popular web novels into hit webtoons once again.

Tapas Entertainment, which consistently introduced popular novel comics such as ‘The End Is Not the End,’ which had accumulated over 20 million views before the merger, now has a foundation for more aggressive novel comics through the combination of Radish, which holds numerous strong web novel IPs, and Usia World, which possesses the world's largest action fantasy and martial arts genre IPs.

Collaboration with a local creator community of about 100,000 from Tapas and Radish will also be actively pursued. Kakao Entertainment stated that it is creating prominent IPs with local creators while also working on major upcoming projects with popular local authors.

Webtoon 'Navillera'

Establishing a North American ‘K-webtoon Forward Base’

With over 10,000 original IPs, Kakao Entertainment plans to lead the ‘K-webtoon’ wave using Tapas Entertainment as its forward base. The North American market, where less than 1% of Kakao Entertainment’s IPs account for 70% of Tapas’ total revenue, shows high interest in webtoons.

Former Tapas Media CEO Changwon Kim and Kakao Entertainment Global Business Division CEO Jongcheol Park will serve as co-CEOs of Tapas Entertainment.

CEO Changwon Kim said, “With the merger, North American digital storytelling platforms Tapas, Radish, and Usia World have come together. The top-tier story IP spectrum and large-scale local creator collaboration in North America are expected not only to expand the global reader base but also to create synergy with the North American entertainment industry.”

CEO Jongcheol Park stated, “Just as the ‘wait-to-read-for-free’ business model and webtoons discovered by Kakao Entertainment are creating success stories in North America, the launch of Tapas Entertainment will be the starting point for Kakao Entertainment to fully demonstrate its capabilities in North America. We will lead the expansion of the North American K-webtoon business through close collaboration with local partners, building an IP pipeline, and sharing operational know-how between the two companies.”

Meanwhile, as its first move after the merger, Tapas Entertainment participated in Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) held in Seattle from August 18 to 21. Tapas Entertainment operated a booth highlighting global webtoon IPs discovered locally in North America such as ‘The End Is Not the End,’ ‘Unfamiliar,’ and ‘Magical Boy,’ and held panel sessions to facilitate exchanges between webtoon creators and readers.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.