Kakao Mobility

Mobility · Ride-Hailing · IPO

IPO

Kakao Mobility reportedly files confidentially for $1B US IPO

South Korea's new ban on subsidiary listings pushed the ride-hailing giant toward New York, clearing an exit path for early backer TPG.

• Kakao Mobility confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the U.S. SEC in June, targeting roughly $1 billion in an ADR offering, according to IPOX citing IFR.
• Kakao Mobility runs Kakao T, South Korea's dominant taxi-hailing app with more than 30 million users, and is a subsidiary of Kakao Corp., operator of KakaoTalk.
• Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and UBS are named underwriters; a confidential filing lets the company get preliminary SEC feedback before publicly disclosing price range and offering structure.
• The push to New York follows a South Korean ban on subsidiary listings that took effect in early August 2026, which blocks Kakao Mobility from listing domestically alongside its already-public parent.
• TPG's consortium, Kakao Mobility's second-largest shareholder with about 29% ownership, invested roughly 640 billion won ($459.7 million) since 2017; at an estimated 5.5 trillion won valuation its stake would be worth about 1.5 trillion won.
• Kakao Mobility previously abandoned a 2022 domestic IPO attempt amid controversy over allegedly favoring affiliated taxi drivers in call allocation.
• The offering appears aimed more at giving TPG an exit than raising growth capital, illustrating how Korea's crackdown on parent-subsidiary dual listings is redirecting local tech spinoffs to U.S. markets.