Wuxiaworld Founder Buys Platform Back From Tapas Before Shutdown
The buyback keeps Wuxiaworld running independently while its former parent winds down Tapas, but the site returns with a monthly gross loss where it once made more than US$300,000 in monthly gross profit.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime News Network.
Ren, who founded Wuxiaworld in 2014, has bought the English web fiction platform back from Tapas Entertainment, returning it to independent ownership. He announced the purchase on September 20, days before Kakao Entertainment said Tapas will close its North American service on March 31, 2027. Ren said the coming shutdown was the main reason for the buyback. The platform now runs at a monthly gross loss of about US$30,000.
Ren founded Wuxiaworld in 2014, sold it to Kakao Entertainment through Radish Media in 2021, and watched it pass under Tapas Entertainment after the 2022 Tapas-Radish merger. He said he completed the repurchase from Tapas in under a month, and thanked Kakao and Tapas for helping close it.
The finances are the other half of the story. When he handed the company over, Wuxiaworld brought in more than US$300,000 in monthly gross profit. By July 2026, its latest finalized month, it was posting a gross loss of roughly US$30,000. He plans cost cuts and a startup mode, and says machine translation is not part of the plan.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime News Network News Wuxiaworld Founder Buys Back Web Fiction Platform From Tapas