Kakao Entertainment, an entertainment subsidiary of internet group Kakao, has agreed to buy US-based short-form fiction platform developers Radish and Tapas Media for a combined $950m, allowing several corporate investors to exit.
The company will purchase Tapas for about $510m, while Radish will be acquired in a transaction sized at $440m. The deals follow the January 2021 merger of two Kakao subsidiaries: online content marketplace Kakao Page and record label and talent agency Kakao M.
Founded in 2012, Tapas operates an online platform for ‘bite-sized’ webcomics and novels. Kakao Page increased its stake in the company to 40.4% through an investment of undisclosed size in November 2020.
Tapas had previously raised $5m in a 2018 series A round featuring, Kakao and SBI Investment Korea, a subsidiary of financial services firm SBI, in addition to 500 Startups, ID Ventures, Medici Investment, EN Investment and Adam D’Angelo.
The company had pulled in $2m of series A funding in 2014 from Daum Communications, an internet service provider that merged with Kakao later that year, following $1.4m from investors including telecommunications firm SK Telecom’s SK Planet subsidiary, 500 Startups, Strong Ventures, Chester Roh and Adam D’Angelo across two seed rounds.
Founded in 2016, Radish provides a mobile app platform where users can read serialised fiction from a variety of genres. They can access the first few issues of a series and additional episodes for a small fee, or wait an hour for the next episode to be unlocked for free.
Kakao Page co-led a $63.2m series A round for Radish in August 2020 with SoftBank Ventures Asia, a subsidiary of telecoms and internet group SoftBank.
The company had received $3m in a 2017 seed round that included Softbank’s Next Media Innovation Fund as well as UTA Ventures and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, on behalf of talent agency UTA and media group Bertelsmann respectively.
Venture capital firms Greylock Partners, Lowercase Capital and Sherpa Capital also took part in the seed round alongside individuals including author Amy Tan, while VC firm K50 Ventures was also an early investor in the company.