HO CHI MINH CITY — Lotte Ventures' push into Vietnam's startup market is not about investment returns alone. The firm aims to find new business opportunities for Lotte Group affiliates while supporting the growth of local startups, building a structure in which Vietnam's economy and the Korean conglomerate grow together.
Bae Joon-sung, executive director at Lotte Ventures who has led the firm's investment division since 2019, met with the Seoul Economic Daily in Ho Chi Minh City recently and drew a clear line. "From a venture investment standpoint, if making money were the goal, there are plenty of places to invest," he said. "We are not running this kind of win-win project just to generate returns." He added, "Our principle is to reinvest profits from startup investments in Vietnam into the local industrial ecosystem rather than bring them back to Korea."
When selecting local startups, Bae said the most important criterion is not how high a return a company can deliver but whether it can work with Lotte affiliates. Rather than simply looking for companies with high investment value, he said, the firm focused on whether their technologies and services could be applied at Lotte's actual business sites and how they could grow alongside Lotte.
"In selecting the local companies to join L-Camp Vietnam, our startup development program, we assessed their growth potential along with where they connect commercially with Lotte affiliates, and we picked the first cohort on that basis," Bae said. "Lotte Ventures effectively serves as a bridge, offering growth opportunities to local startups and new business opportunities, such as new technologies and services, to Lotte affiliates."
Because collaboration potential with Lotte affiliates was a central consideration from the selection stage, actual business discussions are taking shape quickly. Loudio, a spatial interactive music management platform chosen for the first L-Camp Vietnam cohort, plans to test its service at Lotteria Vietnam outlets and expand the scope of cooperation.
Over the medium to long term, Lotte Ventures plans to further expand its investment and development base while supporting the growth of Vietnam's local startup ecosystem. In 2021, it became the first Korean company to win approval from the Vietnamese government as a foreign-invested venture capital firm, securing a foothold for long-term operations in the country.
"For Lotte Group to do business in Vietnam over the long haul, it has to grow together with the Vietnamese economy, and in that sense the goals of Vietnam and Lotte Group align," Bae said. "Lotte Ventures will continue to play a role in helping nurture local startups."
