---
title: '[Photo Booth Industry] Why Is the Pioneer Losing? A Study of Korean Photo Booth Brand 人生四格 (Life4Cuts) and Parent Company LK Ventures'
url: https://joelin.cc/en/p/5324
source: https://joelin.cc/en/p/5324
lang: en
pubDate: '2026-10-12'
date_modified: '2026-10-12'
description: A study of Life4Cuts and LK Ventures using audited accounts and franchise disclosures, examining falling revenue, negative equity, store closures, and overseas licensing.
author: joe
ai_role: ai_only
translation_of: /p/5324
---

# [Photo Booth Industry] Why Is the Pioneer Losing? A Study of Korean Photo Booth Brand 人生四格 (Life4Cuts) and Parent Company LK Ventures

The original Chinese article was first published on June 1, 2024, and last updated on September 30, 2026. The financial research below was checked on August 8, 2026; the additional PHOTOISM photo-size information was verified in September 2026.

## Summary

This article examines the business difficulties facing LK Ventures, the parent company of Korean photo booth brand 人生四格 (Life4Cuts). Audited financial statements from South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service DART system and franchise disclosures from the Korea Fair Trade Commission show revenue declining for three consecutive years, from ₩25.488 billion in 2022 to ₩12.679 billion in 2025—roughly halving over that period. The company has had negative equity since 2024, and its auditor has flagged uncertainty over its ability to continue as a going concern. Financing has shifted toward high-interest lending and loans from individuals, with annual interest rates of 12–18%.

Store numbers have fallen sharply, while the annual revenue-to-startup-cost multiple per franchise store has dropped from 0.9× to 0.45×, the lowest in the industry. The founder’s decision to retain 100% ownership without external equity funding has left the company without another financial cushion as its core business turns loss-making. Overseas, it uses a licensing model, in marked contrast to PHOTOISM’s directly operated subsidiaries. There has been no progress on the listing originally targeted for autumn 2024, and the registration of its Taiwan entity was revoked in July 2026.

The article also includes PHOTOISM photo-size information: the officially published basic size for self-portrait prints is 4 × 6 inches (10.2 × 15.2 cm). Dimensions in centimeters have not been published for the individual photo booth frame formats.

### Key facts

- Revenue fell for three consecutive years, reaching just ₩12.679 billion in 2025, compared with the 2022 peak of ₩25.488 billion.
- Equity has been negative since 2024, with a deficit of ₩10.815 billion in 2025.
- Founder 李鎬翼 owns 100% of the company; it has never raised equity funding.
- Store numbers fell by 109 between 2023 and 2025, to 273.
- The annual revenue-to-startup-cost multiple per store is 0.45×, the lowest in the industry.

I work in the photo booth business, and I make a habit of going through competitors’ parent-company financial statements before commenting.

Recently, I examined [PHOTOISM’s parent company 서북](/p/9563) and [APR, the listed company behind PHOTOGRAY](/p/9557). This time, it is the company I most needed to examine: 人生四格 (인생네컷 / Life4Cuts) and its parent company, LK Ventures (주식회사 엘케이벤쳐스).

Why “most needed”? Because this is the pioneer.

It was the first to establish the Korean self-service photo studio category.

PHOTOISM’s corporate entity was not established until 2020, two years later.

But after reading the accounts, I first need to correct two things this article previously got wrong. When I wrote this page in 2024, I relied on secondhand reposts on the Chinese-language internet, and half of those figures were wrong.

The correction details are in Section 3. Yes, I’m owning up to it—ha!

My conclusion upfront: the pioneer is in much worse shape than outsiders might imagine.

All financial figures below come from audited financial statements published through DART, the Financial Supervisory Service’s electronic disclosure system. All store counts come from franchise disclosure documents published by the Korea Fair Trade Commission. Korean won amounts are retained in their original ₩ currency, without conversion; where I offer a rough sense of scale, I explicitly identify it as an estimate. Verification date: August 8, 2026.

![Article cover: 人生四格 (Life4Cuts) and parent company LK Ventures—revenue fell for three consecutive years to just ₩12.679 billion in 2025; equity turned negative in 2024, with a ₩10.815 billion deficit in 2025; store numbers fell by 109 to 273](https://image.joelin.cc/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/0xu8EsaSar9n3zUKY5d7xw/joelin/2026-09/life4cuts-lk-ventures-decline-hero/hero)

![Brand identity graphic for 人生四格 (Life4Cuts)](https://image.joelin.cc/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/0xu8EsaSar9n3zUKY5d7xw/joelin/2026-09/brand-logo-life4cuts/w=180,h=72,fit=scale-down)

## 1. The most important issue first: the pioneer’s financial statements

LK Ventures is not publicly listed, but it is subject to external audit, so it must upload audited financial statements to DART every April. These are the strongest records I can obtain.

| Entity: (주)엘케이벤쳐스 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Revenue | ₩25.488 billion | ₩22.594 billion | ₩19.017 billion | ₩12.679 billion |
| Operating profit / loss | ₩4.502 billion | ₩1.261 billion | −₩4.791 billion | −₩5.284 billion |
| Net profit / loss | ₩3.615 billion | ₩452 million | −₩8.040 billion | −₩7.487 billion |
| Total assets | ₩12.219 billion | ₩17.522 billion | ₩15.651 billion | ₩7.229 billion |
| Total liabilities | ₩7.941 billion | ₩12.810 billion | ₩18.979 billion | ₩18.044 billion |
| Total equity | ₩4.278 billion | ₩4.712 billion | −₩3.328 billion | −₩10.815 billion |

Three things stand out.

First, revenue has fallen for three consecutive years. The ₩25.488 billion recorded in 2022 was the peak. By 2025, revenue was down to ₩12.679 billion—roughly half the amount three years earlier.

Second, the company has been in a state of complete capital impairment since 2024. Negative total equity means that selling all the company’s assets would still not cover its debts. At the end of 2025, the shortfall was ₩10.815 billion.

Third, the auditor flagged “going-concern uncertainty.” That phrase carries a specific weight in Korean financial statements. The notes to the 2025 accounts explicitly state that the company recorded an operating loss of ₩5.284 billion and a net loss of ₩7.487 billion, while current liabilities exceeded current assets by ₩10.401 billion:

“이러한 상황은 계속기업으로서 그 존속능력에 유의적 의문을 제기하고 있습니다”

In English: these circumstances raise significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

I include the original wording because this is not a media comment. It is what the auditor wrote in the formal financial statements.

### Where the money is coming from

The borrowing details make the company’s position even clearer. Its ₩6.137 billion in short-term borrowings at the end of 2025 included loans from conventional financial institutions such as 기업은행 and 하나은행, but also:

- 캔버스대부, a lending business, at an annual interest rate of 12.00%.
- Nonfinancial corporations including 이도인터내셔널, 시영퍼, and 테라사이언스.
- Two individual lenders.

Long-term borrowings also included a loan from an individual at an annual interest rate of 18.00%. In addition, the ₩2 billion in privately placed corporate bonds issued in 2024 carried a personal joint-and-several guarantee from representative director 李鎬翼 (이호익). A contractual provision had been triggered, increasing the interest rate from 5.733% to 6.733%.

The financing mix that normally appears after bank credit lines have been exhausted is now here.

## 2. What kind of company is LK Ventures?

| Item | Details |
| --- | --- |
| Registered company name | 주식회사 엘케이벤쳐스 (LK Ventures Co., Ltd.) |
| Representative director | 李鎬翼 (이호익) |
| Business registration number | 415-88-00869 |
| Corporate incorporation date | January 22, 2018 |
| Registered head office | Room 570, 5th floor, 93-1 Yeongsan-ro, Mokpo, South Jeolla Province |
| Seoul office | 4th floor, 27 Teheran-ro 2-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul |
| Registered business activities | Manufacturing, wholesaling, and retailing kiosks and vending machines |
| Employees, 2025 | 47 people: 2 executives and 45 staff |
| Current brands | 인생네컷, 포토드링크, 포토메이커; also the pet version 견생네컷 and flagship store 인생네컷+ |

The first point worth recording: the company’s registered head office is in Mokpo, not Seoul.

Mokpo is a port city at the southwestern tip of South Korea, with a population of roughly 210,000.

The 415 prefix in its business registration number is the jurisdiction code for the Mokpo tax office.

The Seoul address is only an office.

What makes this interesting is that, when I previously examined PHOTOISM, I found its registered head office was in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province—also outside Seoul.

The parent companies of the two leading businesses in the Korean self-service photo studio sector both originated in regional cities.

That is no coincidence. This is a business that expands through distribution density and a franchise machine, rather than one nurtured in the greenhouse of Seoul’s venture capital scene.

### An unusual ownership fact: eight years, zero equity funding

I paused when I reached the shareholder register:

| Shareholder | End of 2025 | End of 2024 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 李鎬翼 | 20,000 shares / 100.00% | 20,000 shares / 100.00% |

Paid-in capital was ₩200 million and did not change at all across the four years from 2022 to 2025. The founder owns 100%, and his ownership has never been diluted.

A claim previously circulated in Chinese-language discussions that “Life4Cuts raised only ₩2 billion and took a self-funded path.” The direction was right, but the description was wrong: that ₩2 billion was convertible debt recorded under liabilities, not an equity investment. Actual equity funding was zero.

The self-funded approach is real—and taken to an extreme. The price is that all the money comes in as debt: ₩6.137 billion in short-term borrowings, ₩2.726 billion in long-term borrowings due within one year, ₩2 billion in convertible bonds, and ₩2 billion in privately placed bonds.

The trade-off is clear: retaining 100% control leaves the company without a second financial cushion. Once the core business turns loss-making, equity can only keep falling because there are no outside shareholders to replenish it.

Compare that with PHOTOISM: 서북’s founder retained only 70%, bringing venture capital firms connected to SM and YG into the shareholder register. It also lost money in 2025, but at least some of the money being lost belonged to other people.

## 3. I rechecked all three figures for 2023

When I wrote this page in 2024, I maintained a revenue table based on three Chinese-language reposts. It had many empty cells. This time, I have retained that table as it was and added the audited DART figures alongside it. The gaps are now filled, but the result is ugly.

| Year | Figures I originally collected: secondhand reposts, NT$ | Audited DART accounts: primary source, original KRW amounts | Verification |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2017 | — | No disclosure; the corporate entity was not established until January 22, 2018 | — |
| 2018 | — | No disclosure | — |
| 2019 | — | No disclosure | — |
| 2020 | Revenue 285,000,000, stated as equivalent to ₩12.3 billion | No disclosure; the company was not subject to external audit at the time | ⚠️ Could not verify against a primary source |
| 2021 | — | No disclosure | — |
| 2022 | Revenue 588,000,000 / net profit 104,000,000 / 17.7% | Revenue ₩25.488 billion / operating profit ₩4.502 billion / net profit ₩3.615 billion | ✅ Confirmed; the original table’s “net profit” actually corresponded to operating profit |
| 2023 | Revenue 1,144,000,000 / net profit 229,000,000 / 20.0% | Revenue ₩22.594 billion / operating profit ₩1.261 billion / net profit ₩452 million | ❌ Disproved |
| 2024 | — | Revenue ₩19.017 billion / operating loss −₩4.791 billion / net loss −₩8.040 billion | 🆕 Added |
| 2025 | — | Revenue ₩12.679 billion / operating loss −₩5.284 billion / net loss −₩7.487 billion | 🆕 Added |

The NT$ amounts in the left column are what I recorded from secondary sources in 2024. I have not recalculated the currency conversions this time. The right column retains the original Korean won amounts throughout.

The error in the 2023 row was not a misplaced decimal point: the reported amount was more than twice the actual figure. I had originally recorded revenue as having more than doubled. In reality, it fell 11% from 2022, and operating profit was just 28% of the previous year’s amount.

That figure first appeared in Chinese-language reposts between August and October 2023, phrased as: “This year, Life4Cuts’ revenue has already reached ₩49.4 billion.” My guess is that the original context referred to a forecast for the year or combined sales across all stores worldwide, rather than revenue of the company itself. But I have not found the original Korean source, so this remains a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

I retain this passage because it illustrates a typical risk of secondhand reposting: a figure with an unclear reporting scope passes through several rounds of translation and becomes a “fact.”

## 4. Korean stores: shrinking rather than expanding

For store numbers, I previously used a table combining my own calculations with estimates from the photo booth team. This time, I have something better: the Korea Fair Trade Commission’s franchise disclosure documents. Franchisors are legally required to file them, so these figures carry the authority of government disclosure.

The approach is the same: retain the old table and add the official figures alongside it.

### My estimates versus official disclosures: South Korea

| Year | My original estimate: Joe and the photo booth team, unofficial | Korea Fair Trade Commission figures; most recent filing April 24, 2026 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2017 | 100 | No disclosure |
| 2018 | 200 | No disclosure |
| 2019 | 400 | No disclosure |
| 2020 | — | No disclosure |
| 2021 | — | No disclosure |
| 2022 | 500 | No disclosure; the franchise business was registered only in March 2022, with no reporting obligation before then |
| 2023 | — | 382: 368 franchised + 14 directly operated |
| 2024 | 376 | 323: 310 franchised + 13 directly operated |
| 2025 | — | 273: 261 franchised + 12 directly operated |

Please treat the left column as estimates, not official figures. For 2024, I estimated 376 stores, while the official count was 323—a difference of 53. That is another reason I insisted on digging out the government disclosures this time.

The official three-year trend is clear: 109 fewer stores over two years, a decline of 28.5%.

The changes in franchise contracts make the picture clearer still:

| Year | New stores | Contract terminations |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2023 | 53 | 77 |
| 2024 | 28 | 86 |
| 2025 | 15 | 64 |

In 2025, 15 stores opened and 64 closed. New openings amounted to just 23% of the number of contract terminations.

When I last wrote about PHOTOISM, I said that “the 35% decline in franchise revenue is the signal to watch most closely, because it indicates a clear slowdown in new store openings.”

Life4Cuts is experiencing more than a slowdown. It is seeing net store closures.

### Why franchisees want out: a 0.45× revenue-to-startup-cost multiple

The same disclosure document contains an even harsher set of figures for 2025:

- Average franchise-store revenue: ₩44.66 million.
- Total initial startup charges: ₩99.95 million, comprising a ₩3.85 million franchise fee, ₩1.10 million training fee, ₩3 million security deposit, and ₩92 million in other costs.
- Fit-out costs are additional: ₩28 million for a standard 33-square-meter space.

Opening a store costs approximately ₩100 million, and it generates ₩44.66 million in annual revenue. That is revenue, not profit. The revenue-to-startup-cost multiple is approximately 0.45×.

This is not a new problem. In October 2024, Korean media used the same official dataset to compare five brands, using figures for 2023:

| Brand | Operator | Startup cost | Average franchise-store revenue | Revenue-to-startup-cost multiple |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 하루필름 HARUFILM | H.J.J Company | ₩55.55 million | ₩225.48 million | 4.1× |
| 포토이즘 COLORED | 서북 | ₩71.72 million | ₩229.60 million | 3.2× |
| 포토그레이 PHOTOGRAY | APR | ₩130.88 million | ₩202.80 million | 1.5× |
| 포토시그니처 | 이미지네트웍스 | ₩105.81 million | ₩141.75 million | 1.3× |
| 인생네컷 人生四格 | 엘케이벤쳐스 | ₩99.95 million | ₩88.80 million | 0.9×, the lowest |

It was already the lowest in the industry in 2023, and the only brand whose annual revenue was lower than its startup cost. Two years later, the multiple had fallen to 0.45×.

Head office does not have to do anything wrong for a franchisee to terminate the contract. This number alone is enough.

Once franchisees stop investing, the franchisor’s revenue structure collapses with them. The DART accounts show it clearly: machine sales, recorded as 제품매출, fell from ₩4.424 billion in 2024 to ₩839 million in 2025—a decline of 81%.

There are two other figures I consider even more important than revenue:

- Sales commissions paid to stores were ₩3.988 billion, or 31.5% of revenue, making them the largest single expense. Revenue fell 33%, but this expense fell only 6%.
- Accounts receivable were ₩5.520 billion, with a bad-debt allowance of ₩3.215 billion—a provision rate of 58%. More than half of receivables were already considered potentially uncollectible.

In a franchise or distribution business, a 58% provision rate means that downstream stores themselves are struggling to pay. This is a reading of the health of the entire sector, not just this company.

## 5. The IPO: what happened to the autumn 2024 plan?

This page originally said: “Life4Cuts’ next goal is to list in autumn 2024.”

That was the statement in 2023. It is now August 2026.

Here is the timeline I found:

| Date | Progress |
| --- | --- |
| March 2023 | Korean outlet thebell reported that the company was “confident in its results and launching an IPO,” with 하나증권 as lead underwriter |
| Second half of 2023 | Chinese-language reposts stated a target listing date of autumn 2024 |
| September 2025 | Korean media assessed the KOSDAQ listing as effectively off the table after two consecutive loss-making years; the pre-IPO fundraising round also failed |
| August 8, 2026, the date of my research | DART contained only three audited financial reports, with no listing preliminary-review or securities-filing documents; the company also could not be found in the Korea Exchange’s KIND listing disclosure system |

The company did not list in autumn 2024. As of this writing, public information shows no evidence of a listing process still underway.

With its capital fully impaired, the company would not meet the formal requirements for a standard KOSDAQ listing in any case.

But I need to be clear about one thing: I found no company announcement or report stating that it had formally abandoned the listing. “No subsequent progress could be found” and “the plan has been abandoned” are different claims. I can only make the former.

## 6. Overseas: I opened every country website listed here

This page originally listed official websites for seven countries. On August 8, 2026, I reopened every link:

| Country or region | Official URL, retained from the original page | Status | Actual content |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| South Korea | [lifefourcuts.com](https://lifefourcuts.com/) | ✅ Active | The main site works normally, with complete statutory disclosures |
| United Kingdom / Europe | [life4cuts.co.uk](https://life4cuts.co.uk/) | ✅ Active | Copyright is attributed to LIFE4CUTS JS LTD. of JS Holdings Group; stores include Soho and Piccadilly, with expansion to Milan, Prague, and Amsterdam |
| United States | [life4cutsusa.com](https://life4cutsusa.com/) | ✅ Active | The flagship store is at THE SOURCE in Orange County; nearly all of the approximately 20 other locations are inside H Mart Korean supermarkets |
| Australia | [lifefourcuts.com.au](https://www.lifefourcuts.com.au/) | ✅ Active | Three locations: Melbourne Chinatown, Melbourne Healeys Lane, and Sydney Strathfield |
| Canada ① | [life4cutscanada.ca](https://www.life4cutscanada.ca/) | ⚠️ Active but outdated | The copyright year remains 2023; the entity is LIFE4CUTS LTD. by OCP HOLDINGS (2352765 ALBERTA LTD), with only one physical location, in Calgary |
| Canada ② | [elephant-tan-p5cl.squarespace.com](https://elephant-tan-p5cl.squarespace.com/) | ✅ Active | The content is “LIFE4CUTS CANADA,” but the site still uses Squarespace’s default subdomain and has not connected its own domain |
| Philippines | [facebook.com/lifefourcutsph](https://www.facebook.com/lifefourcutsph/) | ⚠️ Could not determine | Facebook returns errors for automated requests without login, so I could not confirm programmatically whether the page still exists |

None of the seven links listed on this page three years earlier was dead when checked.

The important point in this table is not how many sites remain active. It is that each country has a different local corporate entity behind it. The United Kingdom has JS Holdings; Canada has OCP Holdings; the United States uses H Mart’s distribution network; and the Australian site does not even disclose company registration information.

This is what a licensing model looks like in practice: a consistent brand, but independently run legal entities.

Korean media provided a particularly clean comparison of the cost of that choice: the same year, the same Japanese market. PHOTOISM established a wholly owned, directly operated subsidiary, and its Japan revenue grew from ₩600 million in 2022 to ₩2.7 billion in 2024. Life4Cuts licensed the brand to a local agent, while 엘케이멀티내셔널, its subsidiary responsible for Japan and Taiwan, recorded revenue of ₩100 million in 2024.

The problem with asset-light licensing is that you receive a share of sales, but cannot control the experience and quality. IP rights holders care about the latter.

### Which year did the “12 countries” claim refer to?

This page originally said the brand had “expanded to 12 countries.” That was the figure for 2023. Subsequent official statements were:

- September 2024: frames launched simultaneously in South Korea and 21 other countries.
- December 2024: the Squid Game 2 collaboration campaign covered 27 countries.
- September 2025: the company described itself as having “approximately 1,000 stores in 30 countries, with more than 3.8 million monthly users.”

The reporting scope needs care here. “Approximately 1,000 stores / 30 countries” is the company’s self-reported global total, including stores opened by licensees in different countries. The government-disclosed official figure for South Korea is 273 stores. These figures cannot be used interchangeably, nor can one be subtracted from the other to conclude that there are “727 overseas stores.” There are no government disclosures against which to verify the store counts in licensed markets.

Incidentally, the last update on LK Ventures’ corporate news page was dated May 22, 2025. At the time of writing, it had been inactive for approximately 14 months. Compare that with advertising and promotion expenses being cut from ₩847 million in 2024 to ₩142 million in 2025: these are two manifestations of the same thing.

### Taiwan: the Korean company’s local entity had its registration revoked last month

This was the most unexpected record I found in this round of research.

A search of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs business registration disclosures confirmed that Life4Cuts’ parent company had established an entity in Taiwan:

| Item | Details |
| --- | --- |
| Company name | 韓商樂凱有限公司 |
| Foreign-language name in its articles | LK VENTURES; English name in the import/export registration: LK VENTURES CO., LTD. TAIWAN BRANCH (KOREA) |
| Unified Business Number | 94078389 |
| Establishment approved | June 13, 2023 |
| Operating capital within the Republic of China | NT$500,000 |
| Registered address | 10F-1, No. 48, Fuxing North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei; 51 companies were approved for establishment at the same address, indicating a borrowed or registration-agent address |
| Current registration status | Registration revoked on July 23, 2026 |

The timing makes for a striking comparison.

In [my PHOTOISM article](/p/9563), I wrote that the Korean company established 拍圖一閃有限公司, a subsidiary funded entirely by Korean capital, in Taipei on April 2, 2026. Its Taiwan business shifted from a local agent to direct Korean operation.

Three months later, on July 23, 2026, the Taiwan entity belonging to Life4Cuts’ parent company had its registration revoked.

Two actions in the same market, within three months, moving in completely opposite directions.

But I need to be clear: revoked registration does not mean “Life4Cuts has left Taiwan.” The entity affected was the one directly owned by the Korean company. I found no public information establishing who now operates the Taiwan stores or whether a local entity has taken over the license.

The brand clearly remains active in Taiwan: its official social accounts were still promoting Kakao Friends collaboration frames in 2026.

There are currently approximately 10 locations in Taiwan, which I have compiled in the [人生四格 (Life4Cuts) store directory](https://photobooth.joelin.cc/brand/life4cuts/). The store at No. 27, Wenlin Road, Shilin, Taipei, was Taiwan’s first, opening in 2023. The directory also includes five venues in Hong Kong and two in Japan. This is a list I compiled location by location, not an official aggregate. There is no official master list of Taiwan stores.

## 7. A four-way comparison: three companies with three completely different ways of surviving—the conclusion of this article

Put the four companies side by side, and something rarely discussed becomes apparent: in the same sector, in the same year of 2025, they are pursuing completely different ways of surviving, and none has an easy time.

| | 人生四格 (Life4Cuts) | PHOTOISM | PHOTOGRAY | 하루필름 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Parent company | 엘케이벤쳐스 | 서북 | APR, listed on KOSPI | H.J.J Company |
| Registered head office | Mokpo, South Jeolla Province | Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province | Seoul | — |
| Position in the sector | Pioneer / market creator | Later entrant, now market-share leader | One of the pioneers; restarted after five years on ice | Efficiency specialist |
| Ownership | Founder owns 100%; zero equity funding | Founder owns 70%, with SM- and YG-linked venture capital investors | Internal business line of a listed company | — |
| Overseas model | Licensing through local entities in each country | Directly operated subsidiaries in Japan, the United States, Singapore, and Taiwan | Limited overseas presence | — |
| 2025 revenue | ₩12.679 billion | ₩60.44 billion | 2.8% of group revenue | — |
| 2025 operating profit / loss | −₩5.284 billion | −₩6.34 billion | — | — |
| 2025 equity | −₩10.815 billion; complete capital impairment | ₩4.49 billion | Parent-company market capitalization of ₩13.38 trillion | — |
| Korean stores | 273 | 582 | 249 | — |
| Per-store revenue-to-startup-cost multiple, 2023 | 0.9×, the lowest | 3.2× | 1.5× | 4.1×, the highest |
| Listing status | No progress | Delayed twice, but still being pursued | Parent company already listed | — |

Four ways of surviving, each in one sentence.

Life4Cuts = pioneer + self-funding + overseas licensing. No equity fundraising, no dilution, no overseas subsidiaries. The upside is that the company has belonged entirely to its founder for ten years. The downside is that, once the core business turns loss-making, there is no second financial cushion. Overseas licensing brings in a share of sales rather than the operating gross profit.

PHOTOISM = later entrant + capital + directly operated overseas businesses + turning photo booths into an IP distribution channel. It brought SM- and YG-linked venture capital firms into its shareholder register, established wholly owned subsidiaries in Japan, the United States, and Singapore, and pushed the share of content revenue to 68.8%. The upside is access to frames that competitors cannot obtain. The downside is that, in 2025, it bet on four new brands and two new overseas entities at once. The bills arrived together, and the company swung to a full-year loss.

PHOTOGRAY = a side business of a listed company. Parent company APR has a market capitalization of ₩13.38 trillion, and photo booths account for only 2.8% of group revenue. The upside is that losses in this business line will not bring down the company. The downside is the most expensive per-store cost structure, while the group has explicitly said there will be “no major expansion.”

하루필름 = the company outside the main contest, but the strongest at making money per store. Its 4.1× revenue-to-startup-cost multiple is the highest in the industry, and its ₩55.55 million startup cost is the lowest. It is not pursuing global expansion, an IPO, or an IP platform. It simply makes the individual-store model as good as it can be.

### So why is the pioneer losing?

Three evidence-based explanations, ranked by how much they explain.

First, it chose the lighter path overseas. ₩100 million versus ₩2.7 billion, in the same year, in the same Japanese market, in the same sector. This is an unusually clean comparison in the market. A licensing model leaks value in a business that requires control over quality and IP, because you receive a share of sales but cannot control the experience.

Second, the economics of individual stores broke down first, and the franchise machine stopped on its own. The 0.9× multiple appeared in 2023; the company turned loss-making in 2024. A broken store model shows up a year before it reaches head office’s financial statements. To me, this is the most useful takeaway from the entire article: if you want to assess a franchise brand’s health, look at store-level economics first, rather than head-office revenue.

Third, the brand became so successful that its name became the name of the category. In Taiwan, “人生四格,” and in South Korea, “인생네컷,” are now widely used as generic terms for Korean-style four-frame self-service photo booths. The damage to the brand is that, when a customer says, “Let’s go take 人生四格 photos,” they might walk into any store. The brand is aware of this: its official homepage menu includes a link for reporting trademark infringement.

But the third point is an accelerator, not the main cause.

PHOTOISM faces the same market. It ties generic demand back to its own brand through “frames that only we can get.”

Life4Cuts’ IP lineup is not weak: Disney, Kakao Friends, Pokémon, and Squid Game are among the more than 60 IP properties in its official frame catalog. But it lacks the system that turns IP into a distribution moat.

## 8. What I could not establish

I always include this section, because if I cannot find something, I cannot find it. I do not fill the gaps with estimates.

- Financial figures for 2020 and 2021: there are no DART disclosures because the company was not subject to external audit at the time. I therefore cannot verify the Chinese-language reposts’ claim of ₩12.3 billion in revenue for 2020.
- Separate financial statements for overseas subsidiaries: 엘케이멀티내셔널 and the entities in Japan, Taiwan, and Yantai, China, are not subject to external audit, so DART has no records. The only data point on overseas scale is the Korean media report from September 2025.
- A country-by-country breakdown of “30 countries, 1,000 stores”: the company has not published one, and there are no government disclosures.
- The original Korean source and reporting scope of the “₩49.4 billion” figure: I could not find them.
- Whether the company formally announced that it was abandoning its IPO: there is no announcement or report.
- The reason 韓商樂凱 had its registration revoked, and the entity holding the license for Taiwan stores afterward: no public information was available.
- Whether the official Philippines Facebook page still exists: automated access could not determine this; it requires someone to open it manually.

## An additional question: what size are PHOTOISM photos?

PHOTOISM officially publishes only one photo size: self-portrait prints are provided in a basic 4 × 6-inch format, or 10.2 × 15.2 cm. Depending on the photography package, additional sizes may also be printed. ID photos are printed in the specifications selected for their intended use, and the number of copies varies by specification. This explanation comes from the [customer-service FAQ](https://photoism.co.kr/285/?bmode=view&idx=135347594) in the Photoism Studio category of PHOTOISM’s Korean official website, verified in September 2026.

According to a [Korean media report from August 2022](https://www.beyondpost.co.kr/view.php?ud=2022081117485814136cf2d78c68_30), the self-service PHOTOISM Box photo booths offered five frame formats:

- PHOTOISM Box’s basic four-photo frame, basic 4cut.
- PHOTOISM Box’s six-photo frame, 6cut.
- PHOTOISM Box’s horizontal three-photo frame, film 3-cut.
- PHOTOISM Box’s vertical four-photo frame, layer 4-cut.
- PHOTOISM Box’s wide horizontal four-photo frame, wide 4-cut.

The official site has not published dimensions in centimeters for each of these strips or larger prints, and I have not found reliable primary-source figures. I will not estimate them here. For the 2 × 6-inch format, or 5.1 × 15.2 cm, commonly used for Korean-style four-photo strips, see [What size are 人生四格 photos?](/p/4126).

---

## Further reading

- [The market leader lost money last year: a financial study of PHOTOISM’s parent company 서북](/p/9563)
- [Pioneer, frozen, then restarted: a study of Korean photo booth brand PHOTOGRAY and parent company APR](/p/9557)
- [The leading player with 90% of Japan’s photo booth market: an introduction to Tokyo-listed FURYU](/p/1918)
- [A report on the development of Taiwan’s photo booth and Korean-style photo booth industries](/p/5848)
- [Joe’s 2025 annual review of Taiwan’s photo booth industry](/p/8281)
- Want to know how to pronounce “인생네컷,” what it means, or how to write it in English? That belongs in another article: [How do you say 人生四格 in Korean? The pronunciation and meaning of 인생네컷](/p/9512)
- Looking for the actual photo specifications? [What size are 人生四格 photos?](/p/4126)
- [人生四格 (Life4Cuts) store directory](https://photobooth.joelin.cc/brand/life4cuts/) | Planning to try it in South Korea? [Guide to Korean photo booths](https://photobooth.joelin.cc/guide/korea-photobooth/)

What the stores look like in person: in December 2022, I photographed [a store of the pioneer 人生四格 in Seoul](/p/9635). Its price board offered two prints for ₩4,000 under a 1+1 deal, and the shop also offered tarot readings. On the same trip, I saw [a PHOTO DRINK store that sold orange photo albums instead of four-photo prints](/p/9633); its website’s email address later pointed to Life4Cuts.

## Sources

### Primary sources: government disclosures and official statutory disclosures

1. South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service DART electronic disclosure system — [(주)엘케이벤쳐스 audit report, December 2025](https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20260410002028), 정인회계법인, filed April 10, 2026.
2. DART — [Audit report, December 2024](https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20250410002326), 정인회계법인, April 10, 2025.
3. DART — [Audit report, December 2023](https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20240411001202), 회계법인청, April 11, 2024; includes comparative figures for 2022.
4. Korea Fair Trade Commission — [인생네컷 franchise disclosure document](https://franchise.ftc.go.kr/mnu/00013/program/userRqst/view.do?encFirMstSn=6Ooaa9gJ7dXdXEfS82CDlg%3D%3D), registration number 20220217, most recent filing April 24, 2026.
5. Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs business registration disclosure search — [韓商樂凱有限公司, Unified Business Number 94078389](https://findbiz.nat.gov.tw/fts/query/QueryCmpyDetail/queryCmpyDetail.do?banNo=94078389).
6. [Official 인생네컷 website](https://lifefourcuts.com/), statutory disclosure section.
7. [LK Ventures’ official corporate website](https://lkventures.co.kr/).

### Media and industry sources

1. [소비자가만드는신문, October 17, 2024](https://www.consumernews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=716682) — comparison of per-store revenue-to-startup-cost multiples across five brands.
2. [머니투데이, September 10, 2025](https://www.mt.co.kr/industry/2025/09/10/2025090812402464387) — approximately 1,000 stores, 30 countries, and 3.8 million monthly users.
3. [thebell, March 31, 2023](https://www.thebell.co.kr/free/Content/ArticleView.asp?key=202303311635199520105023&svccode=03) — launch of the IPO process, with 하나증권 as lead underwriter.
4. thebell, September 12, 2025 — comparison of overseas operating models and assessment that the listing was effectively off the table.

### References from this page’s original 2024 version, retained for traceability; their figures have been corrected in this revision

The following three sources are where the “₩49.4 billion in 2023 revenue” figures came from. I have not deleted them because the correction in Section 3 needs something readers can compare against. They are part of this article’s history, rather than evidence for its current conclusions.

1. [startuplatte, August 17, 2023](https://startuplatte.com/life4cut/)
2. [163.com, 2023](https://www.163.com/dy/article/IS06V8BQ051284V8.html)
3. [新浪財經, October 15, 2023](https://finance.sina.cn/2023-10-15/detail-imzrcvpq9785017.d.html)

Sources: The Chinese original was first published on 2024-06-01 and last updated on 2026-09-30. Data and observations retain the historical dates and markets stated in the article.