WEBTOON Entertainment, a leading online cartoon platform carved out of South Korea's NAVER, raised $315 million by offering 15 million shares at $21, the high end of the range of $18 to $21. New investor BlackRock indicated on $50 million of the offering (16% of the deal). NAVER agreed to invest an additional $50 million in a concurrent private placement at the offer price.
Based in Los Angeles, CA, WEBTOON is a global platform for web comics and web novels. The company believes it has pioneered a form of digital storytelling where long-form stories are told through serialized releases of bite-sized episodes available online. WEBTOON's community connects 24 million creators with approximately 170 million monthly active users in over 150 countries, with a concentration of paying users in Korea and Japan. Web comics hosted on its site include popular titles True Beauty and Lore Olympus.
WEBTOON Entertainment plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol WBTN. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore ISI, Deutsche Bank, UBS Investment Bank, and HSBC acted as joint bookrunners on the deal.
