South Korea’s online English education startup Yanadoo under Kakao Corp. has embarked on a process to go public next year, following other family members Kakao Page, Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay in initial public offering (IPO) pipeline while the household platform name is hot.

Yanadoo said Monday that it picked Korea Investment Securities and Samsung Securities as its IPO underwriters to go public next year. It has not decided on which of Kospi or Kosdaq to list.

The two brokerages led the listing of Kakao Games, the first Kakao unit to go public, on the Kosdaq market last year.

Yanadoo merged with Kakao’s kids’ content platform Kakao Kids early 2020 to grow as a comprehensive education platform. It has recently launched a motivational app Youcando and home training service platform Yafit Cycle.

The company also attracted 40.5 billion won ($36.5 million) investment in September last year.

Yanadoo is set to expand its business as a platform that helps users achieve their individual goals in everyday life.

The company’s co-CEO Kim Jung-soo said that it will focus on its newly-launched home training health care service Yanado Fitness this year. He said he hopes the company’s value to grow to over 1 trillion won when it goes public next year, by becoming a leading online learning and home training platform provider.

By Oh Dae-seok and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]