Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank acquired five-year old startup DramaFever Corp, a company which makes available online Korean TV programs for English-language viewers.
DramaFever, a relatively young company that started in 2009, claims hold of the largest online-video distributor of international TV content, showcasing 15,000 episodes and 700 titles of movies and TV shows with subtitles.
The company reportedly has $12 million in assets from different investors like AMC Networks Inc. and SoftBank Ventures.
The deal was one of the efforts of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to expand its foothold in the media industry-currently, the company acquired Telecommunications Company Sprint Corp. in the U.S., bought $250 million shares in "Godzilla" producer Legendary Entertainment, as well as 32 percent stake in emerging e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Satoru Kikuchi, analyst at Tokyo-based SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. extrapolated that the acquisition was SoftBank's way of standing out from the crowd by offering "unique content."
Although DramaFever has some tough competition from over 70 broadcasters all over the world, it claimed that it is able to exclusively air its online content on the same day the show is broadcasted in Korea.
Aside from that, DramaFever teams up with online video streaming companies Netflix and Hulu, making it an online video streaming conglomerate amassing 70 media publishers in its library.
"In five short years since going live, DramaFever has built an impressive Internet-based streaming video business operating at scale," former Google Executive and SoftBank Vice Chairman Nikesh Arora said in an interview with Bloomberg.
With the increasing popularity of Korean content across the globe, Softbank will reportedly get the bank for its buck in buying DramaFever.
"We look forward to helping them bring their highly popular video content to an even larger global audience," Arora added.
SoftBank shares advanced 1.2 percent to 6,958 yen at 9:13 a.m. in Tokyo trading.
