South Korea s Naver to Acquire Wattpad for $600 Million By Ed Nawotka | Jan 19, 2021
Naver, Korea s leading internet platform, is acquiring Wattpad for more than $600 million in cash and stock.
Naver is the leading search engine and digital tools and services provider, a platform akin to Google, in Korea. Naver is also home to the online comics platform Webtoon, which has 72 million monthly users and has produced such popular series as Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, and worked with numerous notable corporations including the Jim Henson Company, Crunchyroll, and Vertigo.
Wattpad, the online social writing and reading platform based in Toronto, has more than five million writers contributing to the site, and reached some 90 million people in 2020. In all, users spent 23 billion minutes a month on the site, which is best known for genre works written by and aimed at young adult audiences. In recent years, Wattpad has inked numerous production deals with Holl
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After 14 years of rising from humble roots in Toronto to become one of the biggest digital storytelling platforms in the world, Wattpad is officially set to be acquired by a major internet conglomerate for $754 million CAD.
South Korea s Naver Corporation is expected to buy the user-generated fiction company in a cash and stock transaction valued at more than $600 million US, subject to customary adjustments and other terms.
The two tech giants confirmed the news late Tuesday after rumours had leaked of Wattpad s potential $500 million US sale to a then-unnamed company.
South Korean internet giant Naver, which owns the global digital comics platform WEBTOON, is acquiring Wattpad in a cash and stock deal valued at more than $600 million.
Korean internet conglomerate Naver to acquire Wattpad for US$600M The deal brings Wattpad under the same umbrella as the digital comic publisher Webtoon, with the platforms boasting a combined user base of around 160 million. (Wattpad co-founder Allen Lau pictured.) January 20, 2021
South Korean internet conglomerate Naver, the parent company of digital comic platform Webtoon, is to acquire Wattpad in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at more than US$600 million.
The acquisition brings together two entities with vast user engagement – Wattpad has a global community of around 90 million users, while Webtoon claims around 72 million monthly active users – with the goal of collaborating to “create a stronger and connected ecosystem across visual and textual storytelling content,” said press release announcing the dea