Busan City Hits a Major Milestone... First Local Government to Establish 100 Billion Won Venture Parent Fund for Two Consecutive Years

700 Billion Won Invested in Innovation Scaling Up
Busan Launches Parent Fund to Boost Local Ventures and Startups

Busan City has secured a strong driving force to support the growth of local ventures and startups.

On the afternoon of August 28, Busan City held the inauguration ceremony for the "Busan Innovation Scale-Up Venture Fund" at Busan City Hotel, officially announcing the creation of a parent fund worth 101.1 billion won.

This fund was established for the purpose of scaling up investments in Busan-based companies. The investment structure consists of 10 billion won from Busan City, 60 billion won from the Korea Fund of Funds, 20 billion won from BNK Busan Bank, 10 billion won from IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, and 1.1 billion won from Korea Venture Investment Corporation.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Sung Heeyeop, Deputy Mayor for Future Innovation of Busan City; Noh Yongseok, Vice Minister of SMEs and Startups; Noh Haedong, Head of Marine and Investment Banking Group at BNK Busan Bank; Kim Intae, Vice President of IBK Industrial Bank of Korea; and Lee Daehee, CEO of Korea Venture Investment Corporation, who officially announced the fund's launch. Immediately after the event, Korea Venture Investment Corporation held an investment briefing session for local and Seoul metropolitan fund managers, sharing investment strategies and management directions.

Through the creation of this parent fund, Busan City plans to establish sub-funds totaling more than 200 billion won within the year. Of this, at least 70 billion won will be directly invested in scaling up local companies. The main investment targets of the sub-funds include entrepreneur-type small business owners (Licon), smart advanced manufacturing companies, and companies in Busan's nine strategic industries. In particular, a separate large-scale sub-fund worth 100 billion won will be established to focus investments on companies in the growth stage.

This fund marks the first case in which a local government has established a parent fund worth over 100 billion won for two consecutive years, following last year's "Busan Future Growth Venture Fund."

Deputy Mayor Sung Heeyeop emphasized, "We will continue to create parent funds so that Busan can establish itself as a new growth hub for the corporate investment ecosystem in the southern region."