"Even after going public, we will not lose our identity as a development-focused company. Our goal is to enhance brand value and become a trusted company after listing."
Kim Hyung-tae, CEO of Shift Up, stated at a press conference held on the 25th in Yeouido, Seoul, "Shift Up is based on a developer-centric corporate culture, improving development efficiency to quickly introduce high-quality games to the market."
Founded in 2013, Shift Up operates a game development business that services major platforms such as mobile, PC, and consoles. Following the release of its first title, Destiny Child, in 2016, it successfully launched Goddess of Victory: Nikke (hereafter ‘Nikke’) in 2022 and Stella Blade in 2024.
Shift Up owns intellectual properties (IPs) in the early stages of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) with sustainable growth potential, such as Nikke and Stella Blade. Nikke has established itself as a top 5 global subculture IP. Through narrative-driven world expansion and regular content updates, it continuously incentivizes user engagement.
Revenue grew approximately 155% in one year, from about 66.1 billion KRW in 2022 to about 168.6 billion KRW in 2023. Growth indicators for the flagship title Nikke, including monthly active users, the ratio of paying users, and average revenue per paying user, all show stable trends.
Stella Blade, released in April 2024, has been recognized for its artistic quality, receiving a user score of 9.2 on the professional review site Metacritic, ranking first among all PS5 games to date. An Jae-woo, CFA, said, "The cumulative sales of Stella Blade are estimated to have exceeded one million copies," adding, "We plan to expand platforms with a PC version and strengthen its value as a global franchise IP through the release of a sequel."
Shift Up plans to use the funds raised through this public offering to expand IP and strengthen game development infrastructure. The strategy is to invest in reinforcing existing IPs like Nikke and Stella Blade, as well as the new project currently in development, Project Witches, to secure continuous growth momentum.
Additionally, Shift Up will apply its differentiated artificial intelligence (AI) technology starting from the development of its next title. This will enhance development efficiency and accelerate the production process. From the conceptualization stage to the pre-production phase where prototype gameplay is created, through the production phase that automates tasks using extensive code, and into post-production, each development stage will be optimized. It is expected to enable the rapid release of high-quality games to the market at lower costs.
The total number of shares offered in the public offering is 7.25 million, all newly issued shares. The expected price range per share is 47,000 KRW to 60,000 KRW, with the offering size based on the upper price range at 435 billion KRW. The final offering price will be determined through institutional investor demand forecasting by the 27th of this month. Public subscription for general investors will take place on July 2-3. The company plans to list on the KOSPI in July. The joint lead managers are Korea Investment & Securities, J.P. Morgan Securities, and NH Investment & Securities, with Shinhan Investment Corp. as the underwriter.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
