Lotte Launches In-House Venture Program "Lotte Unicorn Valley"

Chairman Shin Dongbin Urges "Continuous Innovation"
Business Idea Submissions from Employees Open Until End of This Month

Lotte announced on November 5 that it is launching its integrated in-house venture program, "Lotte Unicorn Valley."

"Lotte Unicorn Valley" is a program designed to accelerate and nurture employees' ideas, with the aim of fostering concepts that can grow into future unicorn companies. Through this in-house venture program, Lotte plans to discover ideas that can strengthen the group's new growth engines and core competitiveness, and to rapidly commercialize them.

Until the end of this month, Lotte is accepting business idea submissions from employees on themes such as senior care, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and eco-friendliness. After a document review and interviews, the company will select ideas to be commercialized by the end of the year, and will begin full-scale acceleration for commercialization starting next year. Up to 100 million won will be provided as commercialization support funding. After commercialization, Lotte will also consider equity investments from group companies, and to ease the burden on participating employees, those who spin off their businesses will be given the opportunity to rejoin the company for up to three years after the spin-off.

Lotte has enhanced the expertise of its in-house venture program by combining the acceleration know-how of Lotte Ventures with the educational capabilities of the Lotte Human Resources Development Institute. Lotte Ventures will provide one-on-one mentoring at every stage and connect participants with external experts tailored to their ideas. During the acceleration process, the program will link participants with group infrastructure in areas such as food, retail, chemicals, and IT, and offer support in legal and financial matters necessary for commercialization. The Lotte Human Resources Development Institute plans to provide practical training in essential skills for commercialization, including business plan writing, pitching training, and presentation skills.

This integrated in-house venture program aligns with the message delivered by Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dongbin at the Value Creation Meeting (VCM) in July. At that time, Chairman Shin urged continuous innovation to overcome uncertainties in the business environment and to restore core competitiveness.

Lotte expects that, through this integrated in-house venture program, the startup DNA characterized by speed and innovation will spread throughout the organization. A Lotte representative said, "We expect to see innovative ideas from employees related to the group's diverse business areas," and added, "We will continue to create a virtuous cycle in which employees autonomously propose creative ideas, nurture them, and commercialize them."