{"id":617705,"date":"2023-03-14T09:49:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T14:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/14\/kakao-to-close-tapas-entertainment-korean-office-next-month-as-part-of-a-restructuring\/"},"modified":"2023-03-14T09:49:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T14:49:31","slug":"kakao-to-close-tapas-entertainment-korean-office-next-month-as-part-of-a-restructuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/14\/kakao-to-close-tapas-entertainment-korean-office-next-month-as-part-of-a-restructuring\/","title":{"rendered":"Kakao to close Tapas Entertainment Korean office next month as part of a restructuring"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.kakaoent.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Kakao Entertainment<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, owned by South Korean tech giant Kakao, will shut down the Korean branch of Tapas Entertainment, the U.S.-headquartered storytelling platform, next month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Kakao Entertainment told TechCrunch that it plans to close the Korean office as part of a restructuring effort to zero in on the company\u2019s North American and other global units. The closure will also include layoffs impacting the Korean-based team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u201cTapas Entertainment is streamlining operations to respond flexibly [and quickly] in the North American market in response to the global economic downturn,\u201d a Kakao Entertainment spokesperson told TechCrunch. \u201cTapas Korea has been in the service of operation and marketing of Tapas Entertainment that is headquartered in the U.S.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The company did not provide the total number of employees at Tapas Entertainment and how many employees at Tapas Korea will be laid off. According to local media outlets, Tapas Korea has about 20 employees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">KaKao Entertainment has three core units: an artist agency (Kakao Entertainment), a storytelling unit (Tapas Entertainment), and a Spotify-like music business (Melon).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tapasentertainment.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Tapas Entertainment<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0operates\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tapas.io\/comics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Tapas<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, a Los Angeles-based webcomic platform; <a href=\"https:\/\/radishfiction.com\/\">Radish<\/a><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/radishfiction.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">,<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0a New York-based serialized fiction app; and\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wuxiaworld.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Wuxiaworld<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, an Asian fantasy fiction platform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Kakao Entertainment will take over the duties previously handled by Tapas Korea, a decision made because the larger organization has more experience and capabilities, the spokesperson explained. They added that this is not related to Silicon Valley Bank\u2019s failure last week despite the fact that Tapas Entertainment is a depositor of SVB. The company is currently preparing measures to deal with the fallout of the SVB collapse, including diversifying assets into different banks and accounts. Due to the U.S. government and regulators\u2019 quick actions, which will guarantee all deposits, the spokesperson said there should not be any effect on the company.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The spokesperson also said the restructuring is not related to an\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2023-03-06\/kakao-plans-964-million-tender-offer-for-sm-daily-reports?sref=gni836kR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">ongoing acquisition deal talks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Kakao is holding regarding<span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0K-pop agency SM Entertainment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The news of the Korean branch shutdown comes nearly two months after <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/01\/11\/kakao-entertainment-lands-966m-from-sovereign-wealth-funds-including-saudi-arabias-pif\/\">Kakao Entertainment\u2019s massive fundraising of about $966 million (1.2 trillion won)<\/a> from Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund and Singapore\u2019s sovereign fund GIC earlier this year. The company said it would use the financing for further international expansion and acquisitions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">In May 2022, Kakao Entertainment <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/kakao-entertainment-merges-us-based-digital-storytelling-platforms-tapas-and-radish-to-accelerate-growth-in-north-america-301550985.html\">merged two storytelling platforms<\/a>, Tapas and Radish Media, to accelerate Kakao Entertainment\u2019s growth in North America. After the merger, it rebranded the combined unit to Tapas Entertainment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/03\/14\/kakao-to-close-tapas-entertainment-korean-office-next-month-as-part-of-a-restructuring\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Kate Park<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kakao Entertainment, owned by South Korean tech giant Kakao, will shut down the Korean branch of Tapas Entertainment, the U.S.-headquartered storytelling platform, next month.\u00a0 Kakao Entertainment told TechCrunch that it plans to close the Korean office as part of a restructuring effort to zero in on the company\u2019s North American and other global units. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":617706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94836,120277,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kakao","category-tapas","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}