Naver Webtoon has started the process of listing on the U.S. NASDAQ. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Naver Webtoon’s U.S. subsidiary and headquarters, ‘Webtoon Entertainment,’ submitted a registration statement to the SEC for an initial public offering (IPO) on the last day of May 31 local time.
According to the registration statement, Webtoon Entertainment has applied for listing on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol ‘WBTN.’ The underwriters are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Evercore. The size of the offering and the offering price have not been disclosed.
Previously in February, Bloomberg estimated the corporate value of Webtoon Entertainment to be between $3 billion and $4 billion, predicting that the company could raise up to $500 million through this listing.
According to the application documents, Webtoon Entertainment recorded revenue of $1.287 billion and a net loss of $144.8 million last year. While the revenue increased compared to the previous year, the losses also grew. EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $11.7 million.
As of the first quarter of this year, the company had 24 million creators and 169 million monthly active users (MAU) worldwide, spanning 150 countries. By region, Korea accounted for 24.7 million users, Japan for 21.1 million, and other countries, including North America, for 123.2 million.
The global monthly paid users (MPU) were estimated to be 7.8 million. By region, Korea had the highest at 3.8 million users (49%). Paid users accounted for about 15.5% of the total users in Korea. Japan had 2.1 million users (28%), and other countries had around 1.8 million users (23%).
Kim Jun-goo, the CEO of Naver Webtoon, stated in a letter attached to the registration statement, “Sharing stories, empowering creators, and building a community have been the driving force behind me and the entire organization for the past 20 years since I started Webtoon. This will remain an unchanged strategy for us as a publicly listed company in the future.”