Webtoon Leisure, which describes itself because the world’s largest net comedian platform, has set its market worth at $2.67bn (£2.11bn) forward of its US itemizing.
Its shares are because of begin buying and selling on the Nasdaq inventory trade on 27 June at $21 every, the highest finish of their marketed vary.
The Los Angeles-based firm is owned by South Korean know-how big Naver, which has been boosted by the rising on-line reputation of Korean and Japanese comics.
Webtoon says it has 170 million month-to-month lively customers in additional than 150 international locations all over the world.
The corporate is aiming to promote 15 million shares and lift $315m within the preliminary public providing (IPO).
The world’s largest fund supervisor BlackRock has expressed curiosity in shopping for as much as $50m of shares.
Webtoon Leisure additionally owns the Japanese net comedian and manga app Line Manga, the online novel platform Wattpad and the Korean net comedian providing Naver Webtoon.
It provides 1000’s of titles protecting completely different genres – together with motion, romance, horror and science fiction.
The webtoon trade, which focuses on online-only comics optimised for studying on cellular, first emerged in South Korea 20 years in the past.
Their reputation exploded globally turning them into a serious South Korean cultural phenomenon alongside Okay-pop and Korean dramas.
Webtoons are low-cost to provide – a single artist can create one utilizing a pill – which might make fashionable comics very worthwhile.
The webtoon trade made $4.7bn 2021 and is projected to develop to $60.1bn by 2030, in line with Spherical Insights & Consulting.
