ESTaid

ESTAiD is a KOSDAQ-listed subsidiary of Estsoft that provides media content services and online advertising centered on its ZUM portal. Founded in 2009 and long operated under the name Zum Internet, the company changed its name to ESTAiD in March 2024 as part of a business diversification effort.

Its core services include the ZUM portal, which has shifted from integrated search to AI-based search; the selfie-based AI profile generation service 'Mevu'; the interactive content platform 'VONVON,' which has a global follower base; and the content curation platform 'piki.' Egloos, a first-generation blog platform acquired in 2013 and discontinued in 2023, was relaunched in April 2026 as an AI-based 'M2T (Media to Text)' platform that converts video into text.

Advertising revenue is understood to represent a substantial portion of sales, and a decline in portal advertising revenue has been cited as a key driver of recent earnings weakness.

Rather than competing head-on with large portal operators such as Naver, the company pursues a niche strategy centered on specialized AI content and profile services.

It maintains close cooperation with parent Estsoft, including joint participation in the LG AI Research consortium and the introduction of the group-wide 'EST Point' reward program. The company has also pursued global expansion, including English and Japanese versions of Mevu.

Consolidated revenue for 2025 came to KRW 15.584 billion, a modest decline from KRW 16.399 billion in 2024, while the operating loss widened to KRW 5.578 billion from KRW 4.805 billion in 2024.

The net loss attributable to owners also grew from KRW 5.033 billion in 2024 to KRW 6.390 billion in 2025, marking a fourth consecutive year of losses.

Looking at the annual trend, revenue stood at KRW 22.922 billion with an operating loss of KRW 0.726 billion in 2022, then revenue fell sharply to KRW 13.837 billion in 2023 as the operating loss widened to KRW 6.176 billion, with losses persisting through 2024 and 2025.

On a quarterly basis, the operating loss grew from KRW 0.951 billion in 2025 Q2 to KRW 1.060 billion in Q3 and KRW 1.694 billion in Q4, before reaching a five-quarter high of KRW 1.920 billion in 2026 Q1.

However, 2026 Q2 showed a notable improvement, with revenue of KRW 4.510 billion (up from the prior quarter), an operating loss of KRW 0.556 billion, and a net loss attributable to owners of KRW 0.557 billion — the smallest loss figures in the recent five-quarter window.

On the cash flow side, operating cash flow was positive in both 2022 (+KRW 2.216 billion) and 2023 (+KRW 1.097 billion), but turned to an outflow of KRW 0.907 billion in 2024 and widened sharply to an outflow of KRW 9.393 billion in 2025.

Alongside this, equity attributable to owners has continuously declined, from KRW 31.243 billion in 2022 to KRW 14.415 billion in 2025, while the debt ratio rose sharply from 23.8% in 2023 to 121.6% in 2025, reflecting a marked shift in the company's financial structure.

The domestic portal and internet services market, in which ESTAiD operates, is structured around large operators such as Naver and Kakao that dominate search, advertising, and content traffic, leaving smaller portals with structural challenges in securing advertising revenue.

A key industry theme is the shift from integrated search to AI-based search, and ESTAiD has responded by introducing AI search on its ZUM portal and rolling out new features such as an AI one-second summary.

The government-led 'independent AI foundation model' project is a strategic initiative aimed at building a domestic AI ecosystem, and Estsoft and ESTAiD are participating in service commercialization competition based on the K-EXAONE model as part of the LG AI Research consortium.

In the AI profile and interactive content market, VONVON and Mevu, both of which have a global user base, appear to be seeking competitive positioning, and the M2T-based relaunch of Egloos, designed to increase visibility in AI search results, can be seen as a response to this trend.

However, as large domestic and global platforms and big tech firms rapidly expand their own AI content and search capabilities, room for differentiation among smaller operators may be limited.

The stablecoin-related trademark filing issue is a broader industry-wide thematic event, and actual commercialization remains at an early stage pending legislative and market structure developments.

In the first half of 2026, ESTAiD, together with the Estsoft-LG AI Research consortium, passed the first-round evaluation of the independent AI foundation model project and advanced to the second stage, with plans to expand the application of the K-EXAONE model across its services.

AI search and a card-based UI redesign have been applied to the ZUM portal, and the company has stated plans to gradually extend K-EXAONE-based features to other services such as Egloos.

The company reported that after Egloos was relaunched as an AI-based M2T platform in April 2026, AI bot visits increased significantly during roughly 100 days of pre-launch, with a full commercial launch planned for September alongside the introduction of paid features centered on B2B partners to build out a revenue model.

Mevu is reportedly planning a Chinese-language version following its English and Japanese launches, and the company has stated it is pursuing product expansion, such as two-person profiles, to improve usage density and payment conversion.

However, the timing and scale of any actual revenue or profitability contribution from these new services have not yet been confirmed in financial results.

The stablecoin-related trademark filings suggest a potential business direction, but given that related legislation, such as the Digital Asset Basic Act, and policy direction remain unsettled, it is uncertain whether this will translate into a concrete business plan.