Online comics company Webtoon Entertainment Inc., owned by South Korea's top internet platform Naver, advanced nearly 10 percent in its first trading session on Wall Street on Thursday, putting its corporate value at US$2.92 billion. Webtoon Entertainment, trading under the ticker symbol WBTN, finished 9.5 percent higher at $23 on the Nasdaq overnight, according to market data. The company rose as high as 14 percent up during the trading session. The company earlier announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 15 million shares of common stock at a price to the public of $21 per share. Webtoon Entertainment's valuation was estimated at $2.92 billion, considering the latest closing price on the U.S. stock market. Kim Jun-koo, founder and CEO of Webtoon Entertainment, said the company's journey to become the "Disney of Asia" is "more than halfway complete." He started off as a search engineer at Naver and launched the Webtoon platform as a side project in 2005. "I have a dream to secure distrib ution channels and intellectual content like Disney to promote quality works. I also want to build a company that lasts more than a hundred years, like Disney," Kim told reporters in New York following the listing ceremony. "I believe we have made significant achievements, as we can distribute competitive intellectual properties to more readers, thanks to the numerous individual artists working with us," he added. The listing is part of Naver's strategy to become a more global webtoon platform. Webtoons, a type of digital comic originating from South Korea about 10 years ago and normally read on smartphones, have seen their popularity extend beyond their home base, attracting international readers in Asia, North America and Europe. Naver holds a 63.4 percent stake in Webtoon Entertainment. Source: Yonhap News Agency