Podotree Inc., mobile contents unit of South Korea’s largest chat app operator Kakao Corp. secured 125 billion won ($106.5 million) investment from Anchor Equity Partners.

Kakao said in a disclosure statement on Monday that its subsidiary Podotree earned investment worth 125 billion won from a consortium led by Hong Kong-based Anchor Equity Partners. The consortium including Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) purchased 3,617,735 new issues in common shares of Pototree at 34,552 won apiece.

Pototree is an operator of Kakao’s mobile contents platform Kakao Page that has roughly 9.5 million cumulative subscribers and earns maximum daily revenue of 470 million won. Its annual transaction volume is expected to double to 100 billion won this year from last year. Daum Webtoon Company, web cartoon platform operator, joined Kakao Page as a business in business in September.

Anchor Equity Partners is a private equity fund operator established in 2012. It focuses to invest in companies in Asia and its investment in Korea includes natural gas distributor Kyungnam Energy Co., e-commerce service provider Ticket Monster, and JB Financial Group Co.

Following the latest investment, Podotree’s corporate value has grown to around 500 billion won and it is expected to use the proceeds to secure intellectual property rights and make more aggressive moves to venture into other business areas such as mobile videos and online advertising.

The mobile content platform operator has scheduled to launch a mobile advertising service and introduce video-on-demand in the first quarter next year. It also aims to advance into Japan, North America and China.

The company vows to make all-out efforts to make forays into international intellectual property market, said Lee Jin-soo, head of Podotree.

On Monday, shares of Kakao ended down 0.8 percent, or 600 won, at 74,700 won from the previous session.

By Oh Chan-jong

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