Key Takeaways
- • ILC Equity Partners, a Korean content-focused PE firm established in 2018, is raising a blind fund valued at approximately 100 billion won to invest in domestic content IP without surrendering intellectual property rights to foreign OTT platforms.
- • CEO Jeong Ji-ho identified a structural market inefficiency: overseas OTT services use massive production budgets and long-term licensing contracts to capture IP and erode cash flows of domestic Korean production companies.
- • ILC's alternative investment model attracts domestic strategic investors (SI) through exclusive content IP, then leverages these relationships to engage institutional LPs (financial institutions historically reluctant to invest in content) while ensuring IP remains domestically controlled.
- • The fund has demonstrated its thesis through the film "Gentleman," cited as a representative portfolio example of the IP-retention strategy.
- • CEO Jeong entered the content market in 2013 as head of a Keystone subsidiary and previously managed investments through C47 Investment, a Singapore-based capital vehicle, establishing a track record in the sector prior to launching ILC.
Summary
ILC Equity Partners, a Korean private equity fund manager specializing in content, is pursuing a capital raise of approximately 100 billion won in blind fund commitments, according to CEO Jeong Ji-ho in an interview with Maeil Business on March 19, 2026. The fund's core thesis addresses what ILC identifies as a structural market failure: overseas OTT (online video service) platforms leverage enormous production budgets and extended licensing agreements to acquire intellectual property rights and lock in domestic Korean production companies into unfavorable long-term contracts, thereby compressing cash flows and limiting upside capture for Korean content creators.
ILC, founded in 2018, proposes an alternative capital structure designed to retain IP domestically while attracting sufficient investment capital. The firm's model operates in two layers: first, it attracts domestic strategic investors (SI) by offering exclusive access to premium Korean content IP; second, it uses these strategic relationships as anchors to bring institutional limited partners—principally financial institutions that have historically underweighted content sector exposure—into the fund. This dual-investor approach allows the fund to deploy meaningful capital while ensuring that intellectual property rights remain under Korean control and available for use by domestic companies rather than being consolidated by foreign streaming platforms.
CEO Jeong Ji-ho stated: "I wanted to create a structure where K content can receive sufficient investment without losing IP (intellectual property rights) abroad," framing the fund's establishment as a corrective response to market structure constraints. Jeong brought substantial sector experience to ILC, having entered the content market in 2013 while serving as head of a Keystone subsidiary. Subsequently, he managed domestic content investments through C47 Investment, a Singapore-based investment entity, before launching ILC.
The film "Gentleman" is cited as a representative portfolio investment demonstrating ILC's IP-retention thesis in practice. The fund's blind structure signals investor confidence in management's deal sourcing and valuation capabilities within the Korean content ecosystem, though the capital raise timing and investor response remain subject to market conditions in the Korean institutional capital base.
ILC, founded in 2018, proposes an alternative capital structure designed to retain IP domestically while attracting sufficient investment capital. The firm's model operates in two layers: first, it attracts domestic strategic investors (SI) by offering exclusive access to premium Korean content IP; second, it uses these strategic relationships as anchors to bring institutional limited partners—principally financial institutions that have historically underweighted content sector exposure—into the fund. This dual-investor approach allows the fund to deploy meaningful capital while ensuring that intellectual property rights remain under Korean control and available for use by domestic companies rather than being consolidated by foreign streaming platforms.
CEO Jeong Ji-ho stated: "I wanted to create a structure where K content can receive sufficient investment without losing IP (intellectual property rights) abroad," framing the fund's establishment as a corrective response to market structure constraints. Jeong brought substantial sector experience to ILC, having entered the content market in 2013 while serving as head of a Keystone subsidiary. Subsequently, he managed domestic content investments through C47 Investment, a Singapore-based investment entity, before launching ILC.
The film "Gentleman" is cited as a representative portfolio investment demonstrating ILC's IP-retention thesis in practice. The fund's blind structure signals investor confidence in management's deal sourcing and valuation capabilities within the Korean content ecosystem, though the capital raise timing and investor response remain subject to market conditions in the Korean institutional capital base.
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