Nexon moves to nurture domestic game startups.
Nexon said on the 23rd it will launch a long-term investment program for early-stage domestic game developers. Over the next five years, it will invest a total of 250 billion won in stages from seed to Series A game developers.
By combining large private capital with the government's content industry promotion policy, the goal is to resolve the structural funding gap in the domestic game ecosystem. For this project, Nexon established Nexon Partners. Nexon Partners joined hands with game-focused venture capital (VC) Kona Venture Partners to launch the 120 billion won strategic fund "Kona Global IP Investment Association." The fund includes 60 billion won from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism intellectual property (IP) account's parent fund.
The investment is an open-ecosystem model that also backs IPs it does not publish (distribution and release) directly. Kona Venture Partners will handle early-stage investments from seed to Series A through a strategic fund using parent-fund capital, and then Nexon plans to directly inject about 130 billion won to serve as priming capital for follow-on growth.
Nexon also aims to secure next-generation growth engines through this investment program. A Nexon official said, "Just as new game companies sprang up during the smartphone transition, we judged that innovative game IPs will emerge in the AI transition, and that now is the right time to invest."
Targets include next-generation game developers leveraging new technologies, as well as IPs with potential for global expansion. In particular, by broadening the definition of games, it has left open the possibility of investing in a wide range of IP content such as "gamified AI."
Previously, from 2012 to 2019, Nexon operated the Nexon and Partners Center (NPC), which supported promising game startups with office space, legal counsel, and publishing. The new project greatly expands the scope of NPC.
Lee Jeong-heon, head of Nexon's Japan unit and head of Nexon Partners, said, "In the recent domestic early-stage game development market, even promising developers continue to struggle to raise funds due to weakened investment sentiment," and added, "In this market environment, we will run a long-term ecosystem investment program that, through public-private cooperation, fills the early-stage funding gap and discovers next-generation global IPs that will emerge in the AI transition."