WakeOne

WAKEONE is a South Korean record label and artist management company that operates under CJ ENM's entertainment division, with offices in Seoul and a catalog built largely around groups formed through televised survival competitions. The roster includes the soloists Kim Feel, Ha Hyun-sang and Jo Yu-ri, alongside Kep1er (assembled on Girls Planet 999), Zerobaseone (Boys Planet), Izna (I-LAND 2) and Alpha Drive One. The company's official site is wake-one.com, and it maintains separate social accounts for individual artists in addition to the main @wakeone.offcl channels.

The corporate lineage is more tangled than the current branding suggests. The entity's registered founding date is 18 February 2014, which refers to a predecessor label within CJ ENM's music operations rather than to WAKEONE as it exists today. The WAKEONE name and all-caps identity emerged from a later consolidation of CJ ENM's labels and management arms under a single banner, so the 2014 date and the brand itself do not quite coincide. CJ ENM, a publicly listed company, owns the label outright; there is no individual founder.

Commercially, WAKEONE's position rests on the survival-show pipeline, which delivers groups with audiences already formed before debut and correspondingly strong first-week sales. Zerobaseone's debut album set records in that category. In June 2026 the label signed a strategic partnership with REPUBLIC Collective covering Izna and Alpha Drive One, part of a push into Western markets that also includes U.S. physical releases and international distribution through retailers such as Ktown4u. The label also runs auditions and trainee development, with the 2026 audition cycle drawing noticeable search interest.

The most consequential recent development came on 25 October 2026, when Alpha Drive One member Kim Geonwoo filed suit against WAKEONE over his contract status, seeking to resume activities after a hiatus that followed a controversy over inappropriate remarks. WAKEONE responded that the parties disagreed over his future activities and that Alpha Drive One would continue as a seven-member group. Earlier in the same month, the company had announced follow-up promotions from the group's second EP. [edit]