{"id":138317,"date":"2026-08-31T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/138317\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T19:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:00:07","slug":"webtoon-parent-naver-takes-stake-in-baobab-studios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/138317\/","title":{"rendered":"WEBTOON Parent Naver Takes Stake in Baobab Studios"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/a> Baobab Studios<\/a>, the 10-time Emmy winning transmedia animation studio, has taken on a strategic investment from Naver Ventures, the U.S. venture arm of Korean tech giant NAVER – parent of WEBTOON Entertainment<\/a> – to build out a new slate spanning Asia and North America.<\/p>\n

First up is “Shine” (working title), an original fantasy adventure from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Erick Oh<\/a> and webtoon author Madeleine Rosca. It launches as a digital webcomic on WEBTOON – where 75% of monthly active readers are Gen Z – paired with a print graphic novel from First Second Books, the Macmillan imprint; Baobab keeps the film, television, streaming, and gaming rights.<\/p>\n

In the story, the balance between the human and spirit worlds shatters, and a half-human girl must cross the divide to save a futuristic Korea.<\/p>\n

Oh, a former Pixar animator, earned a 2021 Oscar nomination for his short Opera and directed Baobab’s Annie-winning Namoo, which premiered at Tribeca in 2021<\/a>. Rosca created the hit WEBTOON series “Rise From Ashes,” read by over 52 million people across 140 episodes; she was also the first non-Japanese creator to win Japan’s International Manga Award.<\/p>\n

“Collaborating with a powerhouse like Naver fuels our biggest ambitions, and this partnership represents a true convergence of East and West by fusing Naver’s deep technology, content and distribution footprint across Asia with our Hollywood animation storytelling,” said Baobab CEO Maureen Fan.<\/p>\n

“The most enduring entertainment franchises create value well beyond a single format, building audiences across animation, gaming, publishing, and interactive experiences,” said Naver Ventures general partner Yong Jung Park.<\/p>\n

“Shine” is Baobab’s second graphic novel with First Second, following the cat-workplace comedy “Intercats.” On screen, the studio’s witch-anthology series Witchverse is in development at Disney+<\/a> – announced back in December 2021<\/a> – and is turning Intercats and “The Magic Paintbrush,” a multi-book series with Penguin Random House, into feature films. The studio also created Roblox experiences for its own “Momoguro” IP and picked up rights this past March<\/a> to develop the Roblox games Natural Disaster Survival, Barry’s Prison Run, and Deepwoken into animated film and TV projects.<\/p>\n

Based in Burlingame, California, the studio is led by Fan, CCO Eric Darnell (writer-director of the Madagascar films), co-CCO Osnat Shurer (Oscar-nominated producer of Moana), and CTO Larry Cutler; Disney, Comcast, and now Naver Ventures back the company, alongside an international investor base that includes Horizons, Shanghai Media Group, and HTC.<\/p>\n

Source: Baobab Studios<\/p>\n

\"Dan<\/a> <\/p>\n

Dan Sarto<\/a> is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baobab Studios, the 10-time Emmy winning transmedia animation studio, has taken on a strategic investment from Naver Ventures,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[623],"tags":[68134,78,70373,70378,3319,70366,68524,68525,70379,70375,68527,70368,70369,68528,70365,68529,68530,657,40558,27719,70367,70370,6920,70364,68533,70372,70374,53641,68534,70371,70377,70376,1030,31580,38738,68536],"class_list":["post-138317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-naver","tag-baobab-studios","tag-business","tag-comcast","tag-comics","tag-disney","tag-eric-darnell","tag-erick-oh","tag-first-second-books","tag-graphic-novels","tag-htc","tag-intercats","tag-larry-cutler","tag-macmillan-publishers","tag-madeleine-rosca","tag-maureen-fan","tag-momoguro","tag-namoo","tag-naver","tag-naver-ventures","tag-opera","tag-osnat-shurer","tag-penguin-random-house","tag-people","tag-rise-and-shine","tag-rise-from-ashes","tag-roblox","tag-shanghai-media-group","tag-shine","tag-the-magic-paintbrush","tag-the-witchverse","tag-web-comics","tag-webcomics","tag-webtoon","tag-webtoon-entertainment","tag-webtoons","tag-yong-jung-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}