Krafton plans to issue an IPO in mid-to-late 2021 that would value the startup as much as $27.2 billion, according to Bloomberg. The company produced the 2017 hit game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG, with Kim Chang-han, a coding prodigy behind it.
- Kim Chang-han, now Krafton’s CEO, won national coding competitions in South Korea in the 1980s but had three multiplayer online games at his three startups fail.
- Kim’s PUBG sold more than 70 million copies of the PC and console versions, while the mobile version was downloaded about 600 million times.
- Krafton manages four game studios, but PUBG accounts for the vast majority of its sales and profits.
- The company had a revenue of more than $1.1 billion in the nine months ended September.
- Analysts are concerned that Krafton could be a “one-hit wonder.”
- Han Kim, the co-founder of Altos Ventures Management Inc. with shares in Krafton, suggests that the most important thing is how Krafton utilizes the intellectual property of PUBG to turn it into a bigger franchise.
- Krafton’s Kim has assured investors the company is creating an animated show to be uploaded on streaming services and a web cartoon.
- Krafton will also make movies, dramas and the company is open to acquisitions in the key areas.
Krafton share sale could be one of the biggest South Korean IPOs
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