Partnership aims to identify monetizable national assets

Crossroads targets fund of over 25 billion won

Kim Su-wook (left), president of the National Asset Research Institute, and Kim Hyo-sang, chief executive of Crossroads Partners, pose after signing an MOU at the company's Seoul headquarters on Thursday. [Crossroads Partners]
Kim Su-wook (left), president of the National Asset Research Institute, and Kim Hyo-sang, chief executive of Crossroads Partners, pose after signing an MOU at the company's Seoul headquarters on Thursday. [Crossroads Partners]

Crossroads Partners, a private equity and venture fund manager, has moved quickly to kick off its intellectual property monetization push, signing a partnership agreement alongside its fundraising efforts.

The company announced Friday that it signed an MOU with the National Asset Research Institute to "enhance IP value and promote direct investment." The signing ceremony was held Thursday at Crossroads Partners' Seoul headquarters and was attended by Chief Executive Kim Hyo-sang, National Asset Research Institute President Kim Su-wook and other key officials.

The National Asset Research Institute is a nonprofit association that launched in November last year after receiving approval from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Established to maximize the economic and social value of state and publicly owned assets, the institute is led by Kim Su-wook, a professor at Seoul National University's College of Business Administration, who serves as its inaugural president.

The agreement was designed to enhance the value of high-quality intellectual property held by government bodies, public and research institutions, universities and companies, and to promote direct IP investment backed by private capital. The goal is to identify the latent value of knowledge assets held by those entities and translate it into tangible returns.

The two organizations agreed to collaborate across five areas, drawing on each institution's expertise and capabilities: identifying business opportunities to utilize and enhance the value of intellectual property; jointly planning and pursuing IP direct investment and monetization business models; developing private-capital utilization models to boost IP value; identifying, reviewing and commercializing projects with direct IP investment and monetization potential; and building a cooperative framework with relevant and specialized institutions.

The National Asset Research Institute will identify business opportunities for IP value enhancement and design tailored commercialization models, leveraging its public and private networks and project-planning capabilities. Crossroads Partners will oversee the core operational work of direct IP investment and monetization — including due diligence, investment structuring and fund deployment — based on its right of first review over identified projects.

The partnership is expected to generate strong synergies with the "Crossroads IP Monetization Venture Investment Association" (tentative name) that Crossroads Partners is currently forming. In June, the firm was selected as the entrusted manager for the IP direct investment segment of Korea Venture Investment Corp.'s Fund of Funds patent account. The target is to raise a fund of more than 25 billion won, combining the Fund of Funds' 10 billion won ($7.24 million) contribution with private capital.

Crossroads Partners demonstrated its direct IP investment capabilities last year by investing in a Wi-Fi technology patent monetization project involving US-based Netgear. The firm is also pursuing monetization through licensing agreements with a number of global companies.

"Our collaboration with the National Asset Research Institute will be an important inflection point in driving qualitative growth in South Korea's intellectual property ecosystem," Kim Hyo-sang said. "We will combine the institute's outstanding project-planning capabilities and public network with Crossroads' IP investment expertise to generate strong synergies."

Kim Su-wook said the partnership would create "a new IP value-enhancement model that connects the institutional capabilities of the public sector with the specialized investment expertise of the private sector," adding that the two sides would work to build a public-private cooperation case that delivers real results.


park.jiyeong@heraldcorp.com