More and more Korean startups are climbing the ‘unicorn’ ladder, with the latest being RIDI, a webtoon-web novel platform. RIDI has attracted 120 billion won ($99 million) in investment from the Singapore Investment Agency and others. The investment was led by Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, with participation from Korea Development Bank, Investor, and Atinum Investment. The investment has made RIDI’s company value of 1.6 trillion won ($1.3 billion), making it the first domestic content platform startup to become a unicorn.
In particular, this investment is more meaningful as it is RIDI corporation’s first overseas investment attraction. The Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) invested by valuing RIDI’s solid position and experience in the content industry and the growth potential of its ‘Manta,’ a global webtoon subscription service.
Investors bid on RIDI’s global growth potential
Existing investment companies, Korea Development Bank and Atinum Investment, are also continued with follow-up investments in anticipation that RIDI will grow into a global company driven by the momentum of K-contents.
RIDI plans to focus on strengthening its global business competitiveness based on this investment. In addition to investing in original content, RIDI plans to build a content value chain such as web novels, webtoons, videos, and OSTs through RIDI’s main IP.
RIDI CEO Bae Bae-sik said, “With this investment, RIDI has been recognized for its content business competitiveness and has secured an important partner for expanding its global business beyond the domestic market. We plan to focus all our business capabilities.”
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