Government Launches 120 Billion Won Fund for K-Games Growth... Jungheon Lee of Nexon Takes Direct Lead (Comprehensive)

Nexon Takes the Lead in Filling the Early-Stage Investment Gap in Korea's Game Market
Providing "Smart Money" to Early-Stage Developers

The government has established a 120 billion won fund to invest in game intellectual property (IP) in order to strengthen the global competitiveness of K-Games.

On June 23, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that it has created a 120 billion won sub-fund through the Culture Account of the Korea Fund of Funds, dedicated to investing in game IP. The funding breakdown is as follows: 60 billion won from the Ministry, 58.8 billion won from Nexon, and 1.2 billion won from the management company, Kona Venture Partners.

Jungheon Lee, CEO of Nexon Japan Corporation Yonhap News

This fund is the largest among all sub-funds within the Culture Account to date. It is also the first time that a game company has participated as a major investor. The fund will provide capital in accordance with each company’s growth stage, from seed investment for early-stage developers to follow-up Series A funding for growth-stage companies. Additional investments will be made into promising companies and projects, aiming to establish a stable foundation for growth.

The primary targets for investment are game IPs with strong global scalability. The fund will focus on supporting intellectual property that can be developed into a variety of content, including story-based and fusion content IPs. In particular, Nexon has clarified its commitment to "investment for the entire Korean game industry" by presenting an open ecosystem model that also invests in IPs it does not directly publish.

Nexon has set a long-term goal of making phased investments totaling 250 billion won in game developers over the next five years. To achieve this, Jungheon Lee, CEO of Nexon Japan Corporation, is directly leading the establishment of Nexon Partners. Nexon believes that, just as many new game companies emerged during the transition to smartphones, the era of AI will also see the rise of innovative game IPs, and that now is the right time to invest.

Previously, from 2012 to 2019, Nexon operated the Nexon & Partners Center (NPC), which provided office space, legal consulting, and publishing support to promising game startups. This new project continues the support philosophy of NPC but is a significantly expanded version in terms of scope.

Jungheon Lee stated, “Recently, even promising early-stage game developers in Korea have been struggling to secure funding due to weakened investor sentiment. In this market environment, we plan to address the early-stage funding gap through public-private cooperation and operate a long-term ecosystem investment program to discover the next generation of global IPs that will emerge in the AI era.”

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also plans to combine policy funding with Nexon’s industry expertise to secure competitive IPs and expand private investments. Kim Kyunghwa, Director of Cultural Industry Policy at the Ministry, said, “In order to realize the era of 400 trillion won for K-culture, we will kick-start content IP investment with policy finance and establish a virtuous financial ecosystem in which private investment continues to follow.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.