November 21, 2024

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IBK headquarters in central Seoul (Industrial Bank of Korea)

The Industrial Bank of Korea on Monday announced the establishment of a strategic investment fund worth 100 billion won ($75 million) to nurture businesses with innovative digital technologies.

The fund will be pooled by the policy lender and its affiliate IBK Capital, with each investing 90 billion won and 10 billion won, respectively. As IBK Capital is more experienced in venture funding, it will manage the fund as a general partner, IBK explained.

The fund aims to support platform operators with innovative digital technologies specializing in artificial intelligence and big data, as they can strategically cooperate with IBK.

The lender plans to form a digital ecosystem of mutual growth as the businesses are expected to become the bank's own future growth drivers.

"(The fund) will finance businesses with outstanding technologies, encouraging the stagnant venture investment market," an official from IBK said. "We will accelerate the digital innovation of IBK through strategic cooperation with (these) businesses."

IBK has been proactively investing in funding local ventures and startups. It has been operating the IBK Changgong program in a bid to discover and nurture budding businesses in the nation since 2017.

This year, IBK plans to put up more than 1 trillion won for venture capital, an increase of 30 percent on-year.

By Im Eun-byel (silverstar@heraldcorp.com)
The Korea Herald