Webtoon Entertainment, which describes itself as the world’s largest web comic platform, has set its market value at$ 2.67bn ( £2.11bn ) ahead of its US listing.
On June 27th, it’s shares are scheduled to begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange at the top end of their marketed variety, priced at$ 21 each.
North Korean tech giant Naver owns the Los Angeles-based company, which has grown in popularity with Korean and Japanese comics as they become more popular online.
According to Webtoon, there are 170 million active people per month in more than 150 nations around the world.
The business intends to sell 15 million shares and raise$ 315 million through an initial public offering ( IPO ).
The world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, has indicated an interest in purchasing$ 50 million worth of shares.
Additionally, Webtoon Entertainment is the publisher of Naver Webtoon, a Asian web comic that offers a Asian version of Line Manga, as well as the Japanese and Korean manga apps Wattpad and Webtoon.
It offers hundreds of titles covering diverse genres- including behavior, romance, horror and scientific literature.
The manga industry, which focuses solely on cartoons that are designed for mobile studying, first developed in South Korea two decades ago.
Along with K-pop and Asian dramas, their reputation exploded worldwide, making them a significant South Korean cultural phenomenon.
Webtoons are inexpensive to produce because a single artist can make one using a pill, which can make well-known comics extremely profitable.
The webtoon industry made$ 4.7bn 2021 and is projected to grow to$ 60.1bn by 2030, according to Spherical Insights &, Consulting.