Expanding Content Finance Systems to Enhance the Value of IP Commercialization

Jina World Pinkfong·Baby Shark 'Content IP Guarantee' Boosts Success
What Has Changed in KOCCA Content Value Evaluation and Innovation Growth Guarantee...

Jinaworld had success last year with Pinkfong and Baby Shark characters. They signed an intellectual property (IP) license agreement with The Pinkfong Company and produced educational and play toys for export. These included Pinkfong Baby Shark spring cars, beep-beep car driving playsets, and sleep dolls. An IP license is a business where a company owning IP such as trademarks, characters, or images grants usage rights for a certain fee. These three products were launched in September last year and have recorded sales of about 1 billion KRW to date. The related product growth rate also entered the double digits in the first quarter of this year.

Jinaworld was able to accelerate its business thanks to the Content IP Guarantee from the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA). This system supports licensing commercialization funds for companies promoting business with content IP. Companies producing one-source multi-use (OSMU) content or manufacturing/licensing products and services can receive funding of around 1 billion KRW after being recommended by KOCCA’s recommendation committee to the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund. Both companies owning IP and those acquiring IP rights are eligible. Baek Seung-hyuk, head of KOCCA’s Content Finance Support Division, said, "In Jinaworld’s case, they created tangible and intangible effects by producing and selling various products as well as widely promoting the IP overseas."

This year, diverse content production using IP is also expected. According to KOCCA’s content finance system announced on the 16th, support for content production funds for IP-utilizing companies has been included in the Content IP Guarantee target. Until last year, only companies owning IP were eligible, but it was judged that the value of IP commercialization could be further increased.

The changes are also evident in the content valuation, a core part of KOCCA’s investment support. Content valuation assesses the business potential of games, broadcasting, films, musicals, TV animation, webtoons, concerts, and supports content companies in attracting investment through recommendations to investors and financial institutions. This year, music and e-learning have been added to the target fields. Individual evaluations are conducted on production infrastructure, content competitiveness, profitability, etc., and projects are recommended to linked funds.

Director Baek explained, "We expanded the target fields to broaden the service genres. Especially, e-learning was included to embrace the trend of integrating various content such as animation and characters and to minimize blind spots." He added, "We will actively cooperate with the third value-linked fund worth 12.2 billion KRW (managed by Logan Ventures), established last year, to attract excellent content investments."

Another change is the expansion of the K-Content Innovation Growth Guarantee target. The K-Content Innovation Growth Guarantee supports guarantees for K-Content Innovation Growth projects. Content companies that have signed export contracts with overseas local companies, or content production companies specialized in converting existing face-to-face content to non-face-to-face formats or producing content to be consumed non-face-to-face from planning and production, can participate. The guarantee limit is up to 1 billion KRW, and the period is up to 5 years.

Last year, new technology convergence content using special-purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent robots, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), holograms, and media facades in content production were targeted. This year, content produced for distribution on domestic and international over-the-top (OTT) online video services has been added.

Director Baek said, "This measure reflects the expansion of the K-Content concept and the steady growth of OTT." He added, "Original works that have already signed distribution contracts with Netflix, YouTube, Watcha, Wavve, Tving, etc., can also be eligible." He continued, "We hope that the changed system will connect companies and financial institutions, strengthening domestic content distribution competitiveness and revitalizing content investment and financing."