South Korea Financial Services Commission opens manager selection for KRW 150 billion K-Culture Value-Up Fund

The South Korea Financial Services Commission and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism have opened the process to select a manager for the K-Culture Value-Up Fund, a KRW 150 billion vehicle aimed at making larger investments across the K-Culture sector, including artificial intelligence content and related technology. The fund is to be formed with KRW 50 billion of fiscal funding and KRW 30 billion from the Korea Development Bank and the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund, with at least KRW 70 billion to be raised from private investors. The structure is split into a KRW 100 billion artificial intelligence and intellectual property fund and a KRW 50 billion content innovation fund. The artificial intelligence and intellectual property sleeve will invest in companies that use artificial intelligence to plan or produce content or that use content intellectual property in businesses such as games, video and music. It must allocate 50% to domestic K-Culture companies, 25% to artificial intelligence content and 25% to intellectual property utilisation, without double counting between the latter two categories. The content innovation sleeve will invest in content companies engaged in activities such as production and distribution, with 50% allocated to domestic K-Culture companies and 15% to content innovation. Both sleeves must invest 15% to 25% in the content sector, more than twice the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund's own contribution ratio. The release describes the initiative as the first case in which the National Growth Fund has worked with a ministry policy fund to expand a fund's size. Proposals are due on August 12, and the final manager is scheduled to be selected and announced in September.