It has been confirmed that Kakao Entertainment is moving to liquidate its subsidiary, "Kiwi Vine," which had been responsible for localizing webtoons for English-speaking markets, following the official announcement of the termination of the North American webtoon platform Tapas.
According to content industry sources on the 7th, Kakao Entertainment recently decided to terminate Kiwi Vine's business and initiate corporate liquidation procedures. All approximately 30 employees currently working at Kiwi Vine are subject to layoffs. The ripple effects of restructuring are spreading even to domestic organizations that have supported Kakao Entertainment's global expansion.
Kiwi Vine is a company specializing in translation and localization for webtoons, web novels, films, dramas, and animations. Kakao Entertainment acquired Kiwi Media Company in October 2021, during the peak of its overseas content business expansion. Since then, it has maintained Kiwi Vine as a subsidiary, entrusting it with global content localization tasks. Kakao Entertainment holds an 80.9% stake in Kiwi Vine.
Since being acquired by Kakao Entertainment, Kiwi Vine has focused its efforts on supporting English-language webtoon and web novel businesses. Its primary duties included localizing content for the U.S. webtoon platform Tapas and the web novel platform Radish, among others. In 2023, Kakao Entertainment introduced Kiwi Vine as a company that delivers Korean content to global users.
The liquidation of Kiwi Vine appears to be a follow-up measure resulting from the downsizing of Kakao Entertainment's North American story business. It is interpreted that the need to maintain a separate English-language localization organization has decreased, as Radish and Tapas, which are key clients and affiliated platforms, have successively ceased operations.
Previously, Tapas officially announced the termination of its service to users on the 1st of this month. Starting from that day, it halted new purchases of "Ink," its paid virtual currency. The service will be completely terminated on March 31 next year. This comes approximately ten days after Kakao Entertainment provided advance notice of the service termination policy to publishers and rights holders last month.
In 2021, Kakao Entertainment made a bold move into the North American content market by acquiring Tapas and Radish at valuations of approximately 600 billion won and 500 billion won, respectively. The total investment amount reached approximately 1.1 trillion won. Subsequently, in 2022, it merged the two companies to restructure them under the Tapas Entertainment system and incorporated Ucia World to target the North American webtoon and web novel market.
The aggressive expansion strategy shifted direction within a few years. Kakao Entertainment terminated the Radish service at the end of last year. At that time, it explained that it would focus its resources on Tapas rather than liquidating Radish to streamline its North American story business, but approximately nine months later, it also shut down Tapas. In 2023, it had already liquidated Tapas Korea, Tapas's Korean subsidiary, and laid off its employees.
Business restructuring is continuing not only in North America but also in other overseas markets. Kakao Entertainment terminated the Kakao Webtoon service in Thailand, where it entered in 2021, in August of this year, and its local subsidiary is undergoing liquidation procedures.
Along with the corporate cleanup, executives have been leaving one after another. It was confirmed that a person who had concurrently served as a registered executive at Kiwi Vine while being a key executive at Kakao Entertainment headquarters recently resigned from their position as a registered executive at Kiwi Vine. This executive was also confirmed to have served as a registered executive of Kakao Entertainment's Thai subsidiary, which is currently undergoing liquidation procedures, until recently.
A representative from Kakao Entertainment stated that they are "reviewing the liquidation procedure" and that they are "in close discussion regarding the future of employees."
in TECH
