S. Korea to launch W150b fund to boost K-culture industry

The government plans to establish a large-scale fund worth 150 billion won ($101 million) to nurture the K-culture industry.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Financial Services Commission on Wednesday launched a public call to select a fund manager for the "K-Culture Value-Up Fund." The fund, structured as a National Growth Fund, will invest across the K-culture industry as well as in AI content and technology. It aims to raise a total of 150 billion won by combining 50 billion won in fiscal contributions from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 30 billion won from Korea Development Bank and the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund, and more than 70 billion won in private capital.

The fund will operate across two broad areas. The first, covering AI and intellectual property, will be structured as a 100 billion won fund. At least 50 percent of the target amount must be invested in domestic companies operating in the K-culture industry, with 25 percent each earmarked for companies that use AI technology to plan and produce content and for companies that leverage content IP — including games, video and music — to operate in the K-culture sector.

The second area, focused on content innovation, will be structured as a 50 billion won fund. As with the first, at least 50 percent of the target amount must go to domestic K-culture companies, while 15 percent must be invested in content industry firms engaged in production, distribution and related economic activities.

Both funds are required to allocate 15 to 25 percent of their investments to the content sector — more than double the content investment ratio set for the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund — to strengthen support for the industry.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has previously operated funds for the culture and content sector through vehicles such as the Korea Venture Fund's culture and film accounts and the K-Content and Media Strategy Fund. Those funds were each around 50 billion won in size, limiting their ability to back large-scale, high-budget content projects. The new fund, bolstered by participation from Korea Development Bank and the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund, is significantly larger and is expected to enable substantial investment in individual projects, making blockbuster-scale productions a viable target.

The fund is also notable as the first instance of the National Growth Fund partnering with a government ministry's policy fund to jointly expand its scale. The National Growth Fund had earlier established a dedicated ministry-support category within its indirect investment arm, designed to collaborate with ministry-level fund programs and enable large-scale support on a per-project basis.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the FSC said they plan to use the collaboration as a springboard to maximize the reach of K-content and help K-culture grow into a leading industry that drives not just the domestic market but global markets as well.

Proposals for managing the K-Culture Value-Up Fund will be accepted through Aug. 12, with the final fund manager to be selected and announced in September.

Kim Gyeong-hwa, director general for cultural industry policy at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, called the fund "a starting point for the National Growth Fund to co-invest — for the first time among all government ministries — in the K-culture industry through the ministry's policy fund," adding that it "will serve as a launchpad for K-culture, as a national growth engine, to leap into global markets."

Son Yeong-chae, head of the FSC's National Growth Fund Promotion Team, said the fund "will continue to link the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund to funds being developed by various ministries, scale them up, and collaborate to enable large-scale investment," pledging to actively identify and advance priority projects across government agencies.