South Korea puts $39m into space projects
March 8, 2023
By Chris Forrester
The South Korean government is creating a fund to support private space start-ups. According to the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, the government will create a 50 billion won fund (€36.1bn) by 2027 to invest in the private space sector. The Korea Venture Investment Corp will operate and supervise the project.
The Ministry will accept applications from potential asset operators for the fund from April 3rd to April 7th, 2023. The goal is to build a 50-billion-won fund by 2027, with an initial investment of 5 billion won to raise a 10-billion-won ‘fund of funds’ this year.
According to the Ministry’s statement, “While many private space start-ups are leading the new space era overseas, the local space industry is still in its infancy, and therefore the majority of local space companies are small or in their early stage”.
The statement adds that the new programme aims to foster the private space sector in the private-led new space era.
Cho Sun-hak, DG of the space and big science policy division at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, “In order to put the Korean space economy on track, vitalising the private space start-up ecosystem is essential. We expect the fund will be at the forefront of pioneering the space economy.”