April 24, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Lotte Accelerator, which invests in seed stage startups and provides opportunities for promising firms to attract follow-up investments, opened its third L-Camp Demo Day at Lotte Cinema World Tower in Jamsil, Seoul, on Dec. 14. 

The corporate accelerator of Lotte Group said 21 startups were provided opportunities to introduce their products to investors and showcase their ideas at their booths.

This event is the final stage of the L-Camp program where Lotte Accelerator selects startups to provide comprehensive support every six months. The program is also intended to help startups in need of subsequent investments. 

Since its establishment in February 2016, Lotte Accelerator has developed and supported about 50 companies. Its most distinguishing feature is that it can measure the marketability of the businesses through diverse collaboration with Lotte affiliates, that can attract investments and business cooperation. 

Lotte Accelerator analyzed the current status of 29 startups from the first and second L-Camp and said the companies’ value increased by 92 percent from 65 billion won (US$59.80 million) to about 125 billion won. In addition, the follow-up investment rate has reached 60 percent while the number of employees increased by 87 percent from 160 to 300. 

“As the startup technology, products, and services are integrated into Lotte’s existing businesses, Lotte’s employees are learning more about the speed and performance of their startups as well as enhancing their competitiveness. Lotte plans to continue investing and cultivating startups,” said Hwang Gak-gyu, president of Vision Strategy at Lotte Shopping. 

Lotte Accelerator plans to recruit startups for its fourth installment of L-Camp from the end of this month. It plans to actively search and cultivate high-tech companies with an emphasis on artificial intelligence, robots and big data.

By Alex Lee (alexlee@heraldcorp.com)