Hanwha Corp, the holding company of South Korea’s chemical-to-defense conglomerate, has invested nearly 7 billion won ($63.5 billion) in Seoul-based music copyright sharing platform Musicow to bet on the new business model amid ever-growing popularity of K-pop.

The stake investment was made in late December through a blind fund created by the company’s affiliate Hanwha Asset Management Co, according to industry sources on Wednesday. The average annual yield from the investment is estimated at 9.1 percent.

Musicow is a music copyright sharing platform established in 2016. The platform allows users to buy a fractional ownership of song copyrights under agreement by the original creators through auctions, as well as trade them with other individual users. The investors receive royalties for the portion of copyrights.

Musicow currently has over 200,000 registered users.

“We see the high growth potential in Musicow,” said a Hanwha Asset Management official, adding that the company is mulling expanding its partnership with Musicow to financial service market.

According to the Korea Music Copyright Association, the combined revenue of copyrighted music in Korea amounted to 220.8 billion won ($184 million) in 2019, jumping 60 percent in five years.

By Song Gwang-seop and Cho Jeehyun

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