RIDI Corporation is a South Korean digital content platform. The article describes RIDI as a unicorn. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC has led a 120 billion won (nearly $100 million) investment in the company. That transaction values RIDI at 1.6 trillion won (approximately $1.3 billion). The article does not provide additional detail on product specifics, operating metrics, or future plans. Ridibooks operates a digital bookstore (Ridibooks), an e-reader device (Ridipaper) and Ridistory, a platform for serialized novels and web comics. The company launched Ridistory in January in response to user demand for serialized content; its top-selling title “Under the Oak Tree” has reached one million views. Ridibooks reported $50 million in revenue last year and has more than 2.5 million users who have downloaded a total of 175 million e-books. Its stores host 784,000 titles from 2,000 publishers. The Korean e-book market is growing roughly 25–30% annually, driven in part by web comics. Ridibooks plans to use new capital to improve product user experience across its offerings. Ridibooks operates an e-book platform and digital content store serving readers in South Korea. The company says it was founded in 2009 and now has about 2 million users and more than 32 million e-book downloads. Ridibooks plans to use new capital to improve its user experience and to reach new customers. It highlights South Korea’s high mobile penetration and a national book market worth roughly $3.2 billion in annual revenue as growth opportunities. Digital books currently account for only three to five percent of that market, but the company expects the segment to expand about 30 percent over the next few years. Ridibooks positions itself as an IT- and software-centric competitor to bookstore chains Kyobo Books and Yes24 and benefits from e-book pricing (60–70% of print prices) relative to strict retail discounting rules faced by rivals.

Total raised

$128M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Mar 2022