In order to revitalize the recently stagnant metaverse industry, the government is expected to promote investment support for domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and venture companies in the metaverse sector.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 18th that it is soliciting investment management companies to establish and operate a metaverse fund worth 50 billion won through the Korea Venture Investment Corporation's 'Mother Fund 2024 March Regular Subscription Business Plan Announcement'.

The Metaverse Fund is a fund that supports small and medium-sized venture companies in the metaverse field. It is an expansion of the existing digital content fund and will continue to invest in M&A to expand the business areas and scale of small and medium-sized venture companies in the metaverse field starting in 2022.

Recently, the metaverse is expected to continue to grow by spreading and expanding into various industrial fields through convergence with various new digital technologies such as generative AI. The competition among global big tech companies to release XR devices is also accelerating the development of the global metaverse ecosystem.

At this time, active investment in the metaverse sector, a representative future new industry in the digital era, is needed, but private investment in the ICT sector, etc. is decreasing due to recent global monetary tightening.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it plans to invest government funds this year to systematically grow domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and venture companies in the metaverse sector and expand the global presence of promising export companies.

In order to support key companies that can compete with global companies, we plan to continue to pursue investments in the existing M&A sector and expand investments to overseas expansion sectors, reflecting the potential for continued growth in the global metaverse market, government policy directions for activating exports, and the demand for overseas expansion by domestic metaverse companies.

In particular, out of the KRW 50 billion in metaverse funds this year (KRW 30 billion in government investment and KRW 20 billion or more in private investment), KRW 30 billion of the government investment will be reinvested as recovery proceeds from the digital content fund, which has not received any new budget. Therefore, it is expected that stable investment will be made in the future with a virtuous cycle of investment-recovery-reinvestment.

Hwang Gyu-cheol, the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Software Policy Director, emphasized, “Due to the recent deterioration in domestic and international economic conditions, the private investment market has been stagnant, but at a time like this, the government’s support is more urgent than ever.” He added, “We hope that through the aggressive financial support of the Metaverse Fund, growth opportunities for domestic metaverse SMEs and venture companies will expand, and further, lead to their entry into the global market.”