Lotte Group announced on Sept. 30 that it has decided to create a fund worth 62.7 billion won ($52.3 million) to support its startup accelerator arm Lotte Accelerator.

The group’s eight affiliates, including Lotte Shopping, Lotte GSR and Lotte Duty Free, along with the state-run Korea Development Bank will invest in the Lotte-KDB Open Innovation Fund.

“Through this fund, we will more aggressively develop and fund startups for open innovation.” Lotte Accelerator CEO Lee Jin-sung said in a statement.

Lotte noted that with the new fund the accelerator arm will support not only startups in their beginning stage but also ones that are hoping to scale up their business.

Since last year, Lotte has been injecting capital in accelerator unit to back its direct investments in supporting startups. The South Korean company emphasized that it is the biggest fund of Lotte Accelerator since its establishment in 2016.

Recently, the Korean conglomerate injected 31 billion won in Lotte Accelerator. As of now, three affiliates -- Hotel Lotte, Lotte Homeshopping and Korea Seven -- have participated in the fund.

On June last year, Lotte injected 29.3 billion won in the unit.

Established in 2016, the company supports more than 100 startups through its accelerating program L-Camp. The company recently finished selecting 10 startups for its L-Camp’s sixth batch and will start the program from October.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)