Dream Pictures 21, a specialized production company for webtoons and moving webtoons (CEO Kim Il-gwon), announced on the 17th that it has signed an underwriting agreement with Shinhan Investment Corp. for its initial public offering (IPO).
Dream Pictures 21 has been selecting and reviewing underwriters for stock listing since 2022 with the goal of listing on KOSDAQ, and after finally selecting Shinhan Investment Corp. as the underwriter, it signed the underwriting contract on the 16th.
Since its establishment in 2000, Dream Pictures 21 has produced numerous digital contents in various formats such as animation, webtoons, and games. Not stopping there, based on its unique technology and long-accumulated production infrastructure, it is pioneering the moving webtoon market that combines webtoons and multimedia, leading the market with the release of numerous high-quality contents.
In particular, the contents produced based on Dream Pictures 21’s own webtoon and moving webtoon IPs have been continuously successful, accelerating its growth. A representative work is the webtoon "Dok Meokneun Healer" (Poison-Eating Healer), launched on KakaoPage at the end of 2022. "Dok Meokneun Healer" achieved 2 million views within one month of launching on KakaoPage and Kakao Webtoon, and secured an exclusive domestic contract with KakaoPage as well as distribution contracts with global content platforms such as Japan’s Piccoma, China’s Tencent, and the United States’ Tapas.
Additionally, in 2022, Dream Pictures 21 actively pursued technology partnerships with leading domestic companies to further enhance production capabilities and infrastructure and maximize content distribution and expansion. The drama adaptation of the webtoon "Appaga Gihwiksaeseo Jallida" (Dad Got Fired from the Agency) was confirmed, and through business synergies with companies recognizing Dream Pictures 21’s growth potential, such as KT’s content subsidiary StoryWiz and Maeil Business Newspaper Group’s subsidiary MBlock Company, the company plans to continuously lead the domestic content production market.
Kim Il-gwon, CEO of Dream Pictures 21, stated, “We decided to pursue listing to achieve even more explosive growth based on the content production capabilities and infrastructure accumulated over more than 20 years.” He added, “Starting with the listing, we will create continuous success stories domestically and internationally, establishing ourselves as a representative cultural content production company of Korea on the global stage.”
Meanwhile, Dream Pictures 21 is exclusively serializing "Dok Meokneun Healer" on KakaoPage, while producing about 10 other works including popular web novel-based webtoons such as "Daechidong Class" and "Appaga Gihwiksaeseo Jallida." It also plans to launch a moving webtoon platform combined with NFTs by the end of the first quarter.
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