CRIT Ventures Backs Webtoon Studio Exten Studio to Accelerate Global IP Expansion

Venture capital firm CRIT Ventures has invested in Exten Studio, a webtoon production and distribution company focused on adapting popular web novels into webtoons and expanding into media-mix content.

Founded in 2024 by Shin Sang-won, creator of the hit webtoon “The Law of Being a Pet” that recorded 120 million cumulative views on KakaoPage and former CEO of webtoon studio The Ent, Exten Studio specializes in “novel comics”—webtoons adapted from proven web-novel intellectual properties. The company has released 16 titles to date.

Exten Studio has built an integrated production and distribution model, maintaining in-house teams for planning, directing and visual production while contracting directly with major webtoon platforms. The approach has enabled the studio to control both creative quality and revenue streams.

The company’s representative work, “I’m in a Secret Romance with the Emperor, but I Don’t Know It,” launched simultaneously on KakaoPage, Kakao Webtoon and Japan’s Piccoma in June and quickly rose to top rankings on all three platforms, validating the studio’s global IP competitiveness.

With the new funding, Exten Studio plans to release four to seven new titles annually through 2030, steadily expanding its self-distributed catalog. The company will develop IP tailored to local audiences from the planning stage and broaden its distribution channels beyond Japan into North America and Southeast Asia to drive overseas revenue growth.

The studio also intends to pursue media-mix business by adapting successful webtoon IP into drama and film content. The strategy aims to attract new audiences through video adaptations, drive traffic back to the original webtoons, and maximize IP value by capturing both secondary-rights revenue and serialization income.

“Discovering quality source material is just as important as the ability to reinterpret it into differentiated content and grow it over the long term,” said Sang-won Shin, CEO of Exten Studio. “Based on the expertise we’ve built, we will continue to secure competitive IP and transform it into content loved not only in Korea but across global markets.”

Jung-woo Hong, investment manager at CRIT Ventures who led the round, commented, “The global webtoon market is still in its early growth phase, offering ample opportunity for Korean companies capable of entering overseas markets with superior content. We will provide full support to help Exten Studio emerge as a globally competitive IP studio.”

CRIT Ventures has recently invested in a series of promising domestic and international content startups with strong growth potential, including Bunkerkids, operator of AI character chat platform WEEP, and Japan’s Yoyogi Animation Group, an IP entertainment company.