Seoul City Launches 'Growth Comprehensive Package' for Content Companies... 20 Firms Selected

'Seoul-type Excellent Content Company Development Project' Animation, Webtoon, Game, Content Production and Distribution Selection Completed
Customized Support for 2 Years Including Domestic and International Content Distribution, Promotion Marketing, Certification and Permission for Overseas Expansion

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is nurturing outstanding ‘S (Super/Seoul)-content companies’ representing Seoul and strengthening the competitiveness of the cultural content industry by discovering companies in fields such as animation, webtoons/web novels, games, and content distribution, and providing comprehensive growth packages.

On the 21st, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Business Agency (SBA), a small and medium enterprise support organization, announced the launch of the Seoul-type Excellent Content Company Development Project with this purpose. They have also completed the selection of 20 companies to participate in the project through a public contest. The support targets are small and medium enterprises or startups that have been established for more than three years. The 20 content companies finally selected this time include animation production companies (5 companies), webtoon/web novel agencies (4 companies), game developers (4 companies), content production/distribution and platform companies (5 companies), and immersive content production and service companies (2 companies).

The core contents of the Seoul-type Excellent Content Company Development Project are twofold: multifaceted, tailored support covering the entire process from distribution, marketing, and labor cost support for company growth, and strengthening business models to secure growth engines for companies.

First, a comprehensive package covering the entire process for company growth is supported. When hiring professional personnel in production, planning, and marketing essential for strengthening production capabilities, labor costs (2.25 million KRW per month) for up to two people per company are supported for up to 18 months. This provides job experience opportunities to job seekers who want to gain experience in these fields, and companies can reduce the burden of labor costs and focus on strengthening content competitiveness.

Support is also provided to strengthen business models that serve as growth engines for companies. In particular, the focus is on expanding business models utilizing intellectual property (IP), which is considered most important in the content industry. This includes expanding the business by applying core characters of animation development specialized companies to the game field or developing them further into immersive content, thereby broadening business scalability and securing diversity in content development.

The city plans to support regular networking among the 20 selected content companies to activate cross-media (convergent secondary creation) project planning and development. Additionally, through the Seoul Content Investment Council launched in July, it plans to gather public-private-academic resources to promote investment in promising companies and new projects, support the establishment of IP business models, and generate revenue.

Baek Hyun-sook, Director of New Growth Industry Planning at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, “Global interest is focusing on various genres of Korean cultural content such as webtoons and dramas beyond K-pop,” and added, “Seoul will strive to discover and support promising content companies for IP development and acquisition as core original content, as well as IP commercialization through convergence with other industries.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.