Krafton and Naver Z Establish Joint Venture for Metaverse Platform

Krafton and Naver Z are establishing a joint venture company for their metaverse platform business.

Krafton announced on the 17th that it has decided to acquire shares and equity securities of another corporation to establish the joint venture. The total investment amount for the joint venture is 48 billion KRW. Krafton's planned acquisition amount is 40.8 billion KRW, and Naver Z's planned acquisition amount is 7.2 billion KRW. After the acquisition, Krafton will hold 85% of the joint venture's shares, and Naver Z will hold 15%.

Since last year, the two companies have been promoting the metaverse project "Migaloo," based on Web 3.0. They decided to establish this joint venture to proceed with full-scale development and services aiming for a metaverse launch within the year. The joint venture will be established in North America, and its name will be announced at the time of establishment.

"Migaloo" adopts a C2E (Create-to-Earn) system in which content creators produce various works in the metaverse space, and users purchase and own those works. The trading of works is based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology. All transactions occurring in the metaverse are recorded on the blockchain, and a settlement method based on this is applied.

In the joint venture, Krafton will be responsible for program development, including sandbox tools for creators' creation and blockchain system development. Naver Z will handle service planning and partnership acquisition. The goal is to create synergy by combining Krafton's expertise in developing and operating various global games such as "Battlegrounds" and Naver Z's know-how in developing and operating the augmented reality (AR) avatar service-based metaverse "Zepeto."

Park Hyung-chul, head of Krafton's Migaloo project, said, "After long consideration, we clearly defined the core services and specific models of an attractive yet feasible metaverse, leading to the establishment of this joint venture. Since both companies have rich experience in successful global content services, we will definitely produce good results."

Kim Chang-wook, CEO of Naver Z, said, "The creator-centered ecosystem built in Zepeto will also be realized in Migaloo. We will grow Migaloo into a new metaverse platform where creators can realize new value in an NFT-based ecosystem based on their creations."