Venture capital firm Krit Ventures said on the 18th that it invested in webtoon production and distribution company Exten Studio.
Exten Studio is a corporations founded in 2024 by CEO Shin Sang-won, the creator of the webtoon "The Law of the Pet Dog," which recorded a cumulative 120 million views on Kakao Page, and former head of the webtoon production company The Ent. Focusing on "noble comics," which adapts verified web novel intellectual property (IP) into webtoons, it has unveiled a total of 16 works to date.
Exten Studio has in-house staff needed for webtoon production, from planning and directing to visual implementation, and has built a distribution structure that contracts directly with major webtoon platforms, achieving both production capability and profitability.
The flagship work "I'm dating the emperor in secret, but I don't know it" began serialization on Kakao Page, Kakao Webtoon, and Japan's webtoon platform Piccoma on June and ranked among the top on all three platforms.
Based on this investment, Exten Studio plans to release four to seven new titles annually through 2030. From the planning stage, it will identify IP aimed at local readers and, starting with Japan, expand distribution channels to major webtoon markets, including North America and Southeast Asia, to accelerate overseas sales growth.
It will also ramp up a media-mix business that expands hit webtoon IP into video content such as drama and films. By securing new readership through screen adaptations and increasing traffic to the original webtoons, the company aims to maximize the added value of its IP by expanding both derivative work revenue and original serialization revenue.
Shin Sang-won, CEO of Exten Studio, said, "As important as discovering strong source material is the ability to recompose it into differentiated content and grow it over the long term," and added, "Based on the know-how we have accumulated, we will continue to secure competitive items and develop them into IP loved not only in Korea but also in global markets."