South Korea AI startup Wrtn aims to enter US market, targets IPO as early as 2028

Reuters

Wed, February 11, 2026 at 1:05 AM GMT+9 2 min read

SEOUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - South Korean startup Wrtn expects to generate more than $100 million of annualised revenue this year after launching its AI ​entertainment service in South Korea and Japan, with plans to expand to ‌the U.S. by June and eyeing an IPO as early as 2028, its founder said.

Wrtn’s story-driven ‌artificial intelligence service, called “Crack” in South Korea and “Kyarapu” in Japan, differentiates itself from character chatbot competitors like Character.AI by focusing on interactive storytelling rather than companion-style chatbots, founder Lee Seyoung told Reuters.

“Users aren’t just chatting with a character; they are entering a ⁠narrative world where they are ‌the protagonist,” Lee said, adding that its AI service generates novels, images and audio in real-time based on users’ choices.

Wrtn and ‍other AI companies are facing stepped-up regulation in many countries, while character AI products have been plagued by concerns about unhealthy user dependency or that users will confuse what is ​generated as real relationships.

Lee said Wrtn’s narrative-centric model, in which characters can ‌disappear or be replaced as the AI generates a novel based on user interactions, mitigates concerns compared with companionship-driven services.

Wrtn recorded $70 million of annualised revenue at the end of 2025, surpassing some of its competitors despite only launching in South Korea in late 2024 and in Japan in mid-2025, Lee said.

Average users spend about ⁠two hours daily on the platform, comparable to ​the time spent on Netflix or YouTube, with ​paying users showing retention rates above 70%, he said.

The startup has secured cumulative investment of about 130 billion won, with the last ‍Series B funding ⁠round securing 108 billion won in March 2025. It plans another round this year, Lee said.

The company is targeting $700 million annualised revenue by the end ⁠of 2027 - a tenfold increase - with initial public offering plans tentatively set for 2028 or later ‌in either South Korea or the United States, Lee said.

($1 = 1,466.5800 ‌won)

(Reporting by Joyce LeeEditing by Ed Davies)

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