Just four years after Korea's Kakao Entertainment acquired mobile-first serialized fiction platform Radish Fiction for $440 million, the company announced it will shutter the platform at the end of the year. Radish informed users of the closure in a July 3 email. "After nearly a decade, we have made the difficult decision to wind down the Radish app," the company said in the announcement. "The end-of-service date is December 31, 2025. After that date, all remaining coins, coupons, gift passes or unlocked chapters will become inaccessible."
Cofounded in February 2016 by digital entrepreneur Seung-yoon Lee and Radish CTO Joy Cho, Radish was among the earliest digital innovators vowing to bring change to publishing and which focused primarily on YA romance. The platform introduced a micropayment model that allowed readers to access stories in bite-sized episodes, paying small amounts to unlock chapters after sampling initial content for free. This approach drew inspiration from the Victorian tradition of serialized novels—as well as similar successful platforms, such as Wattpad and China Literature—while providing new revenue streams for digital authors. It offered both e-books and audiobooks for readers.
The platform eventually attracted more than 2,000 authors, who contributed some 10,000 stories. Radish became known for popular romance titles including Torn Between Alphas by Panda B, which racked up 238.7 million views on the platform, The Dragon's Baby by Violet Jessamine (23.1 million views), Our Dirty Little Secret by Sabrina Oliva (18.5 million views), and Once Upon a One Night Mistake by Simone Shirazi (48.7 million views), among others. The platform also featured fantasy and YA series that helped established a devoted readership.
Top-performing writers on the platform reportedly earned over $40,000 per month at its peak, with others generating thousands of dollars monthly from their serialized works.
An initial round of $3 million seed financing attracted established investors, including Greylock and Softbank Next Media, as well as from the United Talent Agency, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, and Larry Kirshbaum, who formerly led both Warner Books and Amazon Publishing's New York operations.
After raising a further $67 million in venture funding and growing the platform, Radish was acquired by Kakao. The acquisition was part of Kakao's expansion into digital content platforms, which also included the purchase of webcomics platform Tapas Media, which it purchased for $510 million, the same year.
In its closure announcement, Radish assured authors that royalty payments would continue at normal rates through the end of service. "For those who publish on Radish, all public facing stories or chapters can be viewed, and purchased, through the end of our service date," the company said. "We will continue to pay royalties at our normal rate."
The company did not specify reasons for the shutdown, though the closure comes after the company reported significant revenue shortfalls. Radish's estimated annual revenue reached approximately $21.6 million in recent years, but in 2023, Kakao took a goodwill impairment charge of 425.2 billion KRW ($325 million) against its investments in Tapas Media and Radish amid “operational challenges” and slowing growth.
According to the Korea Economic Daily, the closure of Radish is part of Kakao's effort to sell or shutter unprofitable businesses in the hopes of reviving an IPO, plans for which it had shelved due in part to the high amount of debt it took on during a yearslong acquisition spree.