The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Thursday announced that it plans to establish three funds worth a total of 298.5 billion won ($271.6 million) to support local content creators and sports and tourism businesses.

The money will be injected through a fund-of-funds managed by Korea Venture Investment Corp., in line with the Culture Ministry’s practice since 2005 of investing indirectly in small and midsized cultural businesses through venture capital funds instead of choosing which businesses to fund.

“Through government support funds, we hope to vitalize the industries that are hit by COVID-19 and also to lead the growth of small startups into unicorns,” the Culture Ministry said in a statement, referring to startups with a value of 1 trillion won or more.

The ministry said it will make sure that this year’s funding is provided around a month earlier than last year’s, for the purpose of reviving the economy. Also, the ministry said it will continue to listen to feedback from different cultural industries and come up with more effective financial policies.

The fund for content creators will start with 144 billion won from the Culture Ministry, and 71 billion won will be raised from the private sector.

Around 150 billion won from that fund will be provided to content creation companies that are in their early stages. For content creators trying to recover from failures due to COVID-19, around 25 billion won will be set aside.

Around 30 billion won will be allocated to support content creators for subscription-based video-on-demand services.

For the tourism industry, the Culture Ministry plans to inject 45 billion won into a 65 billion-won fund.

To support new sports-related businesses, the Culture Ministry will set aside 13 billion won to create an 18.5 billion won fund.

More details will be announced on the Korea Venture Investment Corp.’s website, www.kvic.or.kr.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)