Gwangju City Holds Investment Attraction Performance Report and Investment Confirmation Ceremony

Mayor Lee Yong-seop: "Expected to Become a Driving Force in Securing Competitiveness of the Cultural Content Industry"

On the afternoon of the 29th, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, attended the 2020 Cultural Industry Investment Promotion District Activation Investment Attraction Performance Report and Confirmation Ceremony held in the City Hall Business Room. After signing a business agreement between Gwangju Metropolitan City, venture capital firms, and companies, they took a commemorative photo. From the left: Kim Jun-young, Director of Gwangju City Culture, Tourism and Sports Office; Tak Yong-seok, Director of Gwangju Information and Culture Industry Promotion Agency; Shin Jae-seop, CEO of Pleximind Co., Ltd.; Na Yong-geun, CEO of Campfire Anyworks Co., Ltd.; Park Jun-young, CEO of Amusing Park Co., Ltd.; Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City; Cha Sang-hoon, Vice President of Kakao Page Co., Ltd.; Jung Myung, Director of Magna Investment Co., Ltd.; Jung Mu-yeol, CEO of eClox Venture Partners; Kim Ho-rak, CEO of Studio Button Co., Ltd.; Son Seok-in, Executive Director of Daekyo Investment Co., Ltd. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the afternoon of the 29th that it held an investment attraction performance report and investment confirmation ceremony for the revitalization of the 2020 Cultural Industry Investment Promotion District at the City Hall Business Room.

This investment attraction is the result achieved through the operation of the 2020 investment attraction program at the AI Content Company Support Center within the only cultural industry investment promotion district in Korea.

The main investment details are ▲ KakaoPage Co., Ltd. and ES Investor Co., Ltd., two companies, investing a total of 4 billion KRW, with 3.2 billion KRW and 800 million KRW respectively, in the local game company Pleximind, which develops games based on webtoon intellectual property (IP); ▲ Daekyo Investment Co., Ltd. and Aurora World Co., Ltd., two companies, investing a total of 1.5 billion KRW, with 1.2 billion KRW and 300 million KRW respectively, in Studio Button, famous for producing Netflix Originals; ▲ Magna Investment Co., Ltd. investing 1.3 billion KRW in Amusing Park; ▲ Ecrux Venture Partners investing 300 million KRW in Campfire Anyworks. In total, six private venture investment companies are investing 7.1 billion KRW in four local cultural content companies.

Among them, KakaoPage, a content subsidiary of Kakao, is a global content business company and a comprehensive content platform that organically encompasses webtoons, web novels, movies, dramas, and entertainment, leading Korea's content industry.

ES Investor Co., Ltd. operates six fund associations in the digital content field.

Investment company Daekyo Investment is a venture capital company leading the development of the venture industry, pursuing sustainable growth of the group through discovering and developing new growth engines, and contributing to the nurturing and development of the venture industry.

Aurora World Co., Ltd. focuses on character content design and brand marketing.

Magna Investment managed and operated 13 investment associations with a total fund operation scale of 248.3 billion KRW in 2020. It is also an investment company selected as an operator of TIPS, a government-led private technology startup support project.

New venture capital Ecrux Venture Partners is an investment company that forms and operates funds investing in cultural content such as animation characters.

Also, Pleximind, which confirmed investment this time, is a content-specialized company whose main business is mobile game production and webtoon planning, production, and distribution, and plans to produce the comic "Island" as a mobile game.

Studio Button is a local animation production company that has grown from startup to growth with the support of Gwangju City. The animation "Chul-dong! Yuhoo Rescue Team," which has been broadcast on KBS since last April, was introduced to 120 countries worldwide last year through Netflix Originals (works in which Netflix has invested or participated in production).

Studio Button will produce the animation "Jurassic Cops" with investment support.

Amusing Park is a company developing software related to games, mobile, and web content, and plans to produce the mobile game "Amusing Heroes."

Campfire Anyworks, attracted by the Gwangju Information and Culture Industry Promotion Agency and relocated its headquarters to Gwangju last year, will produce "Bigfoot Family of the Jumbled Island," aiming for EBS broadcast in the first half of 2022 with investment support.

Kim Ho-rak, CEO of Studio Button Co., Ltd., said, "Through the planning and creative studio support project of the Gwangju Information and Culture Industry Promotion Agency, we started the content business and earned the honor of producing the first Netflix Original work by a local animation company in Asia," adding, "We will not lose our original intention and will strive for the globalization of K-animation with new ideas."

Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, "The choice of six private venture investment companies that believed in Gwangju's cultural capabilities and future and decided to invest will be a great driving force for Gwangju's cultural content industry to secure sustainable competitiveness," and added, "We hope this investment will become a success case where four local cultural content companies grow into globally competitive companies, and where stable investment and profit generation, as well as job creation, are possible in regions outside the metropolitan area as long as there are ideas and technology."