Founded in 2010, Pinkfong was a little-known entertainment company until its “Baby Shark Dance” children music video on YouTube exploded in popularity in 2018.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Pinkfong, the Seoul-based studio behind “Baby Shark Dance”—the world’s most-watched YouTube video—saw its shares rise 9.3% in its South Korea stock market debut Tuesday, boasting a market cap of 596 billion won ($407 million).
Pinkfong’s shares on the small-cap Kosdaq soared to a high of 61,500 won in intraday trading, before closing at 41,550 won. The company raised 76 billion won from the sale of 2 million shares at 38,000 apiece, the top end of its marketed range.
Founded in 2010, Pinkfong was a little-known entertainment company until its two-minute “Baby Shark Dance” children music video on YouTube exploded in popularity in 2018. The video caught children’s eyes and ears with its colorful animation featuring Baby Shark and Pinkfong the fox, simple dance moves and repetitive lyrics. In 2020, it became YouTube’s most-watched video, a title it still holds today, generating cumulative views of 16.4 billion to date.
Riding on the global success of the Baby Shark singalong, Pinkfong has since expanded into television shows (such as the Baby Shark’s Big Show! co-produced with Nickelodeon Animation Studio in the U.S., the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants), musicals, educational apps and merchandise for kids.
The company also grew its IP portfolio beyond its signature shark and fox, adding characters such as Bebefinn, a pink-haired toddler whose favorite character is Baby Shark, and Sealook, a group of chubby seals. Its Bebefinn preschool animated show broke into Netflix’s top 10 kids chart across nine countries, including the U.S., soon after its debut on the streaming platform in 2022.
With capital raised from the IPO, Pinkfong plans to expand its audience from toddlers to children and teenagers as well. Prior to the public listing, Pinkfong already set sights on teens, launching a romance fantasy webtoon series called Moon Shark, which features a human-looking shark princess who falls for a K-pop idol. The company said it plans to spend more than half of its IPO proceeds to launch three new IP by 2028, according to its prospectus.
Meanwhile, Pinkfong intends to acquire a studio specializing in 3D children content production. The company will also develop AI tools used in pre-production, such as voice synthesis and image generation, while expanding its presence beyond North America, its key overseas market, to Japan, Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
In the first six months of 2025, Pinkfong’s revenue declined 2.4% to 45.2 billion won and its net profit plunged 67% to 3.8 billion won. During the period, the company generated 68% of its sales from contents based on its IP, with 15% from merchandise, 10% from licensing and the rest from games and other segments. More than 75% of its revenue came from overseas.
Pinkfong was cofounded by Kim Min-seok, who had stints at Korea’s top online gaming companies Nexon and NHN. The 44-year-old owns a 15.9% stake in Pinkfong. His uncle is tycoon Kim Chang-soo, who runs Korean fashion company F&F. Chang-soo holds a 0.7% stake in Pinkfong.
In an interview with Forbes in 2023, Kim shared his ambition to grow Pinkfong into a multigenerational entertainment company. “One of our ultimate goals would be to create joyful content that can bring people from different generations and backgrounds together,” he said. “It would be truly meaningful if we see toddlers who grew up watching Pinkfong and Baby Shark become grownups, and enjoy Pinkfong and Baby Shark with their own children in the future.”
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zinnialee/2025/11/18/baby-shark-creator-pinkfong-rises-in-south-korea-ipo-debut/
