Lotte Accelerator Hosts Elcamp Busan 2nd Online Demo Day

On the 27th, Lotte Accelerator held the 'L-Camp Busan 2nd Demo Day,' an event to help startups secure follow-up investments, at Signiel Busan. The photo shows Youngmin Jeon, CEO of Lotte Accelerator (third from the left in the front row), and participating startups taking a commemorative photo. (Photo by Lotte Holdings)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Lotte Accelerator held the 2nd online demo day event of ‘L-Camp Busan’ at Signiel Busan to support follow-up investments and business connections for startups.

Launched in February 2019, ‘L-Camp Busan’ is a startup incubation program jointly operated by Lotte Accelerator and the Busan Center for Creative Economy and Innovation. Following the first cohort of 10 startups, 9 startups were selected for the second cohort last March. They received early-stage funding, office space, management support including IT and legal services, and expert mentoring.

The demo day, co-hosted with the Korea Agricultural Technology Commercialization Foundation, was attended by about 400 Lotte Group employees and representatives from leading domestic and international investment institutions both online and offline. The event began with congratulatory remarks from Youngmin Jeon, CEO of Lotte Accelerator, and Byungwoon Kim, General Director of the Korea Agricultural Technology Commercialization Foundation, followed by a special lecture by Dr. Sohyung Kim from Stanford University’s Food Design Lab, and presentations by startups.

A total of 10 companies took the stage to introduce their business models and achievements. Among them were 8 startups from L-Camp Busan’s 2nd cohort, including HN Novatech (alternative meat manufacturing using seaweed), Mallanghani (manufacturer of baby products), Toz (ship design using AR), and Nutri Industry (food waste recycling using insects), as well as 2 startups affiliated with the Korea Agricultural Technology Commercialization Foundation: Creators Lab (manufacturer of eco-friendly products for children) and Chobless (developer of solid foam vinegar).

The growth status of L-Camp Busan’s 2nd cohort, which underwent about eight months of acceleration, is noteworthy. HN Novatech, which developed alternative meat by extracting heme (HEME, organic iron) protein from seaweed, secured follow-up investment of 600 million KRW. Mallanghani, a baby product media commerce company, achieved first place in the entire Naver bath product category with its baby bathtub, ranked first in Naver sales for the childbirth D-Day calendar for three consecutive years, and reached cumulative sales of 120,000 units. Toz, a developer of VR pre-inspection solutions for shipbuilding and marine design, signed a business agreement with STX Offshore & Shipbuilding in May for demonstration testing and joint development of new technologies.

Collaboration between Busan startups from L-Camp and Lotte Group affiliates is also actively taking place. Kkotpam, an online wholesale flower platform (L-Camp Busan 1st cohort), was recognized for its excellent performance indicators and growth potential and secured 1.5 billion KRW in investment this month from Lotte Accelerator and others. Please, a last-mile delivery company using two-wheeled vehicles (L-Camp 4th cohort), is responsible for one-hour delivery in the Jamsil area for LotteON.

Youngmin Jeon, CEO of Lotte Accelerator, said, “The speed of change in various fields is accelerating due to COVID-19, which is expected to create greater opportunities for startups to change paradigms. We will work closely with startups that respond agilely to the fast-changing environment to enable Lotte and startups to leverage their respective strengths and achieve a win-win.”

Meanwhile, over the past five years, a total of 3,660 startups have applied to L-Camp, with 119 selected, showing a competition rate of 30:1. The corporate value of L-Camp (Seoul) cohorts 1 to 5 grew about fourfold from 174.8 billion KRW to 693.2 billion KRW, with more than half securing follow-up investments. L-Camp (Seoul) is currently in its 7th cohort, and recruitment for L-Camp Busan’s 3rd cohort is scheduled to begin in December.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.