The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Nexon are launching a large-scale investment initiative to bridge the funding gap in the early-stage domestic game ecosystem and foster promising next-generation startups. The plan is to build a 'growth ladder' for K-games by combining government content industry policies with large-scale private capital.

Nexon announced on the 23rd that it will launch a long-term investment program totaling ₩250 billion over the next five years for early-stage domestic game developers. To this end, Nexon has established Nexon Partners and partnered with Kona Venture Partners, a venture capital (VC) firm specializing in gaming, to launch the ₩120 billion 'Kona Global IP Investment Fund.

This fund is an IP fund that invests in game intellectual property (IP) through the Korea Fund of Funds' cultural account. It is composed of ₩60 billion from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, ₩58.8 billion from Nexon, and ₩1.2 billion from the manager, Kona Venture Partners. While there have been previous instances of sub-funds formed with game companies as major investors, this is the first time a large-scale fund of ₩120 billion has been established.

The investment will be made in stages to game developers at the Seed to Series A stages. A portion of the total fund will be invested in early-stage game developers (seed investment), with follow-up investments (Series A) provided to companies and projects that demonstrate growth potential. The structure involves Kona Venture Partners activating early-stage investments through a strategic fund utilizing the Korea Fund of Funds, while Nexon acts as a catalyst by directly injecting approximately ₩130 billion to provide the capital needed for subsequent growth.

Notably, Nexon has adopted an 'open ecosystem' model that invests in IP even if it does not publish the games itself, clarifying its commitment to investing in the entire Korean game industry. Based on the belief that innovative game IP will emerge during the AI transition—just as many new game companies were born during the shift to smartphones—the fund will focus on IP with global expansion potential and next-generation game developers utilizing new technologies. By boldly expanding the definition of games, the fund has also opened up possibilities for investing in a wide range of converged content IP, such as gamified AI, significantly expanding and inheriting the philosophy of the Nexon & Partners Center (NPC), which previously supported promising game startups.

Kim Kyung-hwa, Director General of the Cultural Industry Policy Office at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated that this fund is the largest sub-fund in the history of the cultural account and a prime example of expanding the growth foundation for K-games through the combination of policy finance and large-scale private capital. She added that the Ministry will continue to build a virtuous cycle in the content finance ecosystem, where policy finance acts as a catalyst for content IP investment, thereby attracting further private investment to realize the era of a ₩400 trillion K-Culture industry.

Lee Jung-hun, CEO of Nexon Partners, noted that the domestic early-stage game development market has been facing a situation where even promising developers struggle to raise funds due to a cooling investment climate. He stated that in this market environment, the program will be operated as a long-term ecosystem investment initiative to bridge the early-stage funding gap through public-private cooperation and to discover next-generation global IP that will emerge during the AI transition.