bemyfriends, a startup operating fandom platforms for K-pop fans and other communities, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Dreamus, the SK Group unit behind music streaming service FLO and consumer electronics brand iRiver, for 55 billion South Korean won (approximately $38.5 million).
Seoul-listed Dreamus disclosed in filings with South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Friday (October 31) that bemyfriends will acquire 23.2 million shares in the company at 2,368 won ($1.66) apiece, representing a 41.7% premium to the target company’s closing price before the announcement.
Shares of Dreamus closed 3% lower on Monday (November 3) to the lowest level since April.
Dreamus said bemyfriends will collectively buy the shares, which account for a 31.35% stake in the company, from SK Group (17.3%), Neospace (8.6%) and SM Entertainment (5.5%).
The transaction is expected to close on November 28, following the receipt of the remaining 53.9 billion won ($37.7m) payment from the buyer. Dreamus noted in its FSS filing that once the transaction closes, it expects to receive resignation letters from certain executives. A general shareholders’ meeting is expected to take place “as soon as possible after the closing date“ to appoint new executives designated by bemyfriends.
Following the deal, Neospace’s stake in Dreamus will reduce to 9.91%, while SM Entertainment will continue to hold a 7.05% stake. SK Group will also retain a 22.17% ownership in the busines, while bemyfriends will be the largest shareholder with a 31.35% stake.
Established in January 2021, bemyfriends runs b.stage, a platform that allows fans of K-pop groups, esports teams, musicals, and other entertainment content to build online fan communities. It operates the official fan community for the Netflix hit film K-Pop Demon Hunters and other acts like G-Dragon and EXO’s Do Kyung-soo.
The startup says it now operates over 300 fan platforms, positioning it as a competitor to Weverse, the superfan platform operated by HYBE, the K-pop agency behind BTS. Notably, bemyfriends’ Co-Founder and CEO Woo-seok “Steve” Seo previously worked at HYBE.
In his Forbes profile, Seo noted that prior to founding bemyfriends, he led the development of Weverse at HYBE.
Writing on LinkedIn last month, Seo described the K-Pop Demon Hunters fan community project as “close to my heart because it shows how far we’ve come in reimagining what fandom can be.”
“I have dreamed of this era since the days when I started the very first global K-pop community, Weverse. It was also the reason I decided to leave HYBE and take on a new challenge.”
Seo holds a 25.1% stake in privately held bemyfriends, according to a Dreamus filing.
In a separate announcement on Friday, bemyfriends said the acquisition of a controlling stake in Dreamus comes as the company plans to expand “beyond fandom platforms to include music streaming, music distribution, and concert infrastructure.” Notably, Weverse in March launched an in-app music streaming service called ‘Listening Party’. This service, which integrates Spotify as its primary streaming partner, allows artists and fans host “online parties” within the app where they can listen to curated playlists together, and chat in real time.
Meanwhile, bemyfriends said that through the Dreamus deal, it has “completed the fandom business value chain across the entire music and adjacent industries” covering music streaming, music distribution, fan platforms, membership and commerce operations, live communication and concert infrastructure.
The company says it now plans to build new services allowing one-stop access from music listening to fan communication, merchandise purchases, and concert bookings by integrating b.stage’s core features.
bemyfriends said it has posted growth rates exceeding 300% YoY for two straight years and surpassed break-even point as of September.
The Dreamus investment comes over a week after bemyfriends said it secured 21 billion won ($14.7m) in investment from Silicon Valley-based Goodwater Capital, an early investor in Korean unicorns Toss, Daangn Market, Coupang, and Kakao. bemyfriends said the investment marks Goodwater’s first in an entertainment-tech company in Korea.
A Goodwater Capital representative said: “b.stage’s unique B2B fandom business model, which is applicable to various industries and provides complete flexibility to IPs with a B2B business strategy similar to Shopify, has great market potential that goes beyond traditional B2C fandom platforms.”
Two months prior to the Goodwater investment, bemyfriends also received a strategic investment from Japan’s Mitsubishi-affiliated BRICKS FUND TOKYO.
Investments in bemyfriends come as analysts paint a rosy picture of the superfan market. In its Music in the Air report published in June, Goldman Sachs identifies superfan monetization as a significant opportunity for the music industry, estimating a potential annual revenue uplift of $4.3 billion based on 2026 projections.
The analysis assumes that 20% of paid streaming subscribers can be defined as superfans and that these users would spend twice as much as average subscribers, based on Luminate‘s finding that 20% of US music listeners are considered superfans.
HYBE rival SM Entertainment, which still owns 7.05% of Dreamus following the bemyfriends stake sale, has also invested in fan platform operator DearU Co. In April, SM bought an additional 11.42% stake in DearU for 135.6 billion won ($95m), raising its ownership to 45.1%.
Established in July 2017 as Everysing, DearU operates Bubble, a subscription-based platform where fans pay a monthly fee of about KRW 4,500 to exchange private messages with K-pop artists and watch artists’ livestreams. Bubble, launched in February 2020, reportedly had around 2.3 million subscribers as of the second half of 2023.
HYBE’s Weverse, the most dominant fan platform in South Korea, averaged 10.9 million monthly active users in Q2, peaking at 12 million following the June return of all BTS members from military service. The platform’s revenue increased 41% quarter-on-quarter in Q2, HYBE said in its quarterly report in August, without disclosing the actual figure.
Weverse helped push revenue for HYBE’s “artist-indirect” segment up by 19% YoY in Q2 to 257.8 billion won ($180m).
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