On the 15th (Thursday), the Smilegate Group (hereinafter referred to as ‘Smilegate’) announced that it would contribute KRW 13 billion to the Mutual Growth Cooperation Fund (hereinafter referred to as ‘The Mutual Growth Cooperation Fund’) to contribute to the creation and expansion of the domestic creativity, creation, and start-up ecosystem. ) revealed.
For the first time in the game industry, Smilegate signed an agreement with the Large Enterprises Small and Medium Enterprises Agriculture and Fisheries Cooperation Foundation on the 14th (Wednesday) to contribute to the Mutual Cooperation Fund for Large Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises. The agreement ceremony held at the Pangyo Smilegate building in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, was attended by Smilegate Holdings CEO Seong Joon-ho and CFO Lee Jin-beom, Large Small Business Agriculture and Fisheries Cooperation Foundation Secretary General Kim Young-hwan, and Win-Win Fund Director Kim Do-hwan.
The Win-Win Cooperation Fund is a private fund that domestic corporations contribute to the Large Enterprises, Small and Medium Enterprises, Agriculture and Fisheries Cooperation Foundation for win-win cooperation with SMEs.
Smilegate will use the win-win cooperation fund created this time to create and expand the domestic creativity, creation, and start-up ecosystem. To this end, it plans to start by discovering and supporting young entrepreneurs and excellent startups. As Smilegate has been supporting young people’s entrepreneurship and management activities for several years through the independent entrepreneurship foundation ‘Orange Planet,’ this win-win cooperation fund creation is expected to create good synergy with these activities.
In addition, it plans to prepare measures to support small and medium-sized game developers and partners with ‘Stove Indie,’ the largest indie game platform in Korea operated by Smilegate Stove. It also plans to discover and support competitive IP creative businesses such as movies, dramas, webtoons, and animations.
Sung Joon-ho, CEO of Smilegate Holdings, said, “Smilegate has been working hard to contribute to the creation of a healthy startup ecosystem and the growth of startups through the independent startup foundation ‘Orange Planet’ and venture capital (VC) ‘Smilegate Investment.’” The contribution to the Win-Win Cooperation Fund is part of our group’s efforts to create and expand healthy creativity, entrepreneurship, and creative ecosystem, and we hope that it will serve as a foundation for the growth of new creators in the future and become a reliable bridgehead to help early startups advance into the global market. ” he said.
