MyMusicTaste Achieves 'First Simultaneous Profit' Through Painful Restructuring... Remaining Challenge is 'Healthy Growth'

MyMusicTaste is a 'fansumer'-based global K-pop concert planning platform that allows fans to directly request concerts of their favorite artists in their desired cities. Its strength lies in reducing risks by predicting concert demand in advance through big data analysis, and it has built a solid overseas fandom by successfully organizing concerts for famous K-pop artists such as BTS, EXO, and ATEEZ worldwide.

Based on this potential, in 2022, Com2uS acquired a 58.47% stake in MyMusicTaste and secured management rights to strengthen its global entertainment business capabilities and pursue new businesses such as metaverse and NFTs. According to Pitchdeck data, the estimated corporate value at the time of the M&A was approximately 49 billion KRW. Considering that its corporate value was recognized at nearly 80 billion KRW in the past, the transaction was ultimately made at a lowered valuation.

Dynamic Profit and Loss Flow and Dramatic Improvement in Cost Ratio

MyMusicTaste recorded about 25.4 billion KRW in revenue and an operating deficit of 9.5 billion KRW in 2019, and in 2022, it reached a peak revenue of about 47.9 billion KRW, but was still in an operating loss state. Afterward, in 2025, it finally achieved the feat of simultaneously turning both operating profit and net profit into a surplus for the first time.

In this process, the external size and organizational scale were significantly reduced. The number of employees, which neared 70 in 2023, has now decreased to about 14. Revenue also fell by approximately 40% from about 35 billion KRW (34.97 billion KRW) in 2024 to about 20.8 billion KRW in 2025. By sector, revenue from the flagship 'Concert' division decreased from about 22.7 billion KRW to 15.8 billion KRW, and revenue from 'Commerce', which sells albums and goods, significantly declined from about 11.7 billion KRW to 4.7 billion KRW.

The secret behind operating profit turning from a deficit of about 2.8 billion KRW in 2024 to a surplus of about 850 million KRW in 2025 despite a sharp drop in revenue lies in the drastic reduction of the cost of sales. More so than the decrease in revenue, the cost of sales was halved from about 32.8 billion KRW in 2024 to 16.4 billion KRW in 2025. It can be inferred that this was achieved by boldly cutting out deficit-making concert planning that yielded no profit or incurred excessive outsourcing costs, and by scaling back the commerce business, which carried a heavy inventory burden, thereby preventing cost leaks such as unnecessary costs and inventory valuation losses.

[Source: MyMusicTaste Website]

The Illusion of Derivative Valuation Gains and the Real Surplus 'Operating Cash Flow'

The background to the net profit (about 3.14 billion KRW) coming out much higher than the operating profit is due to valuation gains on financial derivatives. The 'Redeemable Convertible Preference Shares (RCPS)' and 'Convertible Bonds (CB)' issued in the past are classified as derivative liabilities in accounting and their fair value must be reassessed every year. During the current term, as investors converted RCPS (about 30 billion KRW) and CBs (about 3.4 billion KRW) into common stock on a large scale, liabilities decreased and the valuation changed favorably, resulting in about 11.97 billion KRW being recognized as a one-off accounting profit. If this non-cash profit is deducted and the valuation loss of about 630 million KRW is added, the actual adjusted net profit remains at a deficit of about -8.08 billion KRW.

However, operating cash flow (OCF) is in a clear surplus. In the process of adjusting the book net profit and loss, non-cash interest expenses (about 9.08 billion KRW) and depreciation were added, allowing OCF to record a surplus of about 6.36 billion KRW. Abandoning the past strategy of obsessing over external expansion and proving a structure where money actually accumulates in the account by controlling expenditures is positive for corporate valuation. Massively converting debt that caused interest expense and repayment pressure into common stock (Cap Table Clean-up) also appears to be excellent preparatory work for a future listing, sale, or new capital attraction. In fact, after being acquired by Com2uS, MyMusicTaste had selected Korea Investment & Securities as its underwriter and prepared for an IPO.

Remaining Challenges for a True Turnaround

Although the results of the restructuring are evident, homework still remains to be solved. First is resolving complete capital impairment. Despite large-scale debts being converted into equity, due to the massive deficit accumulated in the past, total equity as of the end of 2025 was about -12.6 billion KRW, still failing to escape the state of complete capital impairment. Second is securing a new growth engine (revenue-related). Achieving a surplus through cost reduction has clear limitations. Under the circumstance where revenue has dropped by 40%, how the company will achieve 'healthy external growth' again with what core business model in the future is the biggest homework determining the company's valuation.

The painful restructuring and the recovery of cash-generating ability executed by MyMusicTaste are certainly achievements worthy of applause. We hope they will also wisely solve the remaining financial and business challenges, and we cheer for their healthy leap forward as an unrivaled platform connecting the global K-pop fandom.