Samsung NEXT Ventures: Funding, Team & Investors

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Samsung NEXT Ventures: Funding, Team & Investors | Startup Intros

About

Samsung NEXT functions as Samsung Electronics' corporate venture capital arm, investing strategically in seed-stage software and services startups. It provides capital and operational support for companies innovating across key emerging technology sectors: AI & Robotics, Blockchain, Fintech, Healthtech, Infrastructure, and Mediatech. The firm aims to nurture external technologies aligning with Samsung’s long-term vision.

Established in 2013 by Samsung Electronics, Samsung NEXT originated from the company's recognition of software and services' growing importance in technology. This initiative enabled Samsung to proactively engage with disruptive innovation at nascent stages, extending its technological footprint beyond internal R&D. It represents a strategic move for future growth and industry leadership.

Samsung NEXT primarily supports early-stage founders, offering crucial funding and strategic partnership. Its vision is to shape technology’s future by empowering entrepreneurs building software and service platforms. Through targeted investments, the organization fosters a dynamic innovation ecosystem, advancing Samsung’s global interests.

Financial History

Total Raised

N/A

Valuation

N/A

Investments Made

Date	Company	Round	Lead Investor(s)	Co-Investor(s)
Sep 1, 2025	Full-Life Technologies	$50.0M Life Technologies - Series C	—	Clear Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Prosperity7 Ventures
Jun 1, 2025	Volantis	$9.0M Seed	—	Khosla Ventures, Alexandr Wang, Trevor Blackwell
May 1, 2025	Novoflow	$500K Seed	—	Pareto Holdings, Y Combinator
Apr 1, 2025	Opsera	$20.0M Series B	Prosperity7 Ventures	Almaz Capital, Alumni Ventures, Clear Ventures, Energize Ventures, FPV Fund, Juniper Networks, Lux Capital, The Valley Fund, Trinity Ventures, Cherian Mathew, Harris Barton
Mar 1, 2025	Enhanced Radar	$500K Seed	—	Y Combinator, Brendan Iribe, Mei Z.
Mar 1, 2025	Atmosic	$40.0M Series D	Sutter Hill Ventures	Clear Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Prosperity7 Ventures
Mar 1, 2025	VQ Biomedical	$2.0M Seed	Joe Knight, Harbright Ventures, Wolfpack Investor Network	7BC Venture Capital, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Preston-Werner Ventures, Safar Partners, The Hit Forge, Bob Young, Tobias Lutke
Feb 1, 2025	OpenInfer	$8.0M Seed	—	Felix Capital, Foundation Capital, Y Combinator, David Marcus, Mei Z.
Feb 1, 2025	Turing	$14.0M Venture Round	—	7BC Venture Capital, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Preston-Werner Ventures, Safar Partners, The Hit Forge, Bob Young, Tobias Lutke
Jan 1, 2025	Clutch Security	$20.0M Series A	City Hill Ventures	Clear Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Prosperity7 Ventures
Jan 1, 2025	Merit Systems	$10.0M Seed	—	468 Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, B Capital Group, Craft Ventures, Crowberry Capital, CVentures, Framework Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, M12, Mischief Venture Capital, Multicoin Capital, North Island Ventures, Not Boring Capital, Polychain Capital, Polygon, Portal Ventures, SLVC, Spark Capital, Susa Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Charlie Songhurst, Chris Schagen, Julius Genachowski, Ken Howery, Nicolas Berggruen, Regan Bozman
Nov 1, 2024	World Class Health	$8.0M Seed	—	Aster Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Boost VC, Combustion Ventures, InterWest, Multicoin Capital, NextGen Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, Princeville Capital, Transformation Capital, Vivek Garipalli
Nov 1, 2024	Brevis	$8.0M Seed	Polychain Capital, Binance Labs	Andreessen Horowitz, CVentures, SLVC, Balaji Srinivasan, Charlie Songhurst, Nicolas Berggruen
Sep 1, 2024	Fitogether	$7.0M Venture Round	—	Hashed, SLVC
Jul 1, 2024	Clutch Security	$9.0M Seed	Lightspeed Venture Partners	Clear Ventures, Cyberstarts VC, General Catalyst, MizMaa Ventures, Oren Yunger, Nyca Partners, Outrun Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures, SNR, Ameet Patel, Shlomo Kramer
Jun 1, 2024	Kinetic Automation	$21.0M Series B	Menlo Ventures	Almaz Capital, Courtside Ventures, Energize Ventures, Juniper Networks, Lux Capital, Prosperity7 Ventures, Red Swan Ventures, The Hit Forge, Harris Barton, Sam Parr
Jun 1, 2024	SLUSHY	$10.0M Seed	—	Pareto Holdings, Y Combinator
May 1, 2024	Alinia AI	$2.0M Seed	Precursor Ventures, Frederik Hagenauer	7BC Venture Capital, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Entrepreneur First, General Catalyst, Motier Ventures, Preston-Werner Ventures, Safar Partners, Speedinvest, Stellation Capital, T-Bird Capital, The Hit Forge, Anthemos Georgiades, Bob Young, Henry Davis, Thomas Rebaud, Tobias Lutke, Clément Delangue, Miguel Martinez, Oriol Vinyals, Thomas Wolf, Tom Preston-Werner, Xavier (Xavi) Amatriain, K Fund
Feb 1, 2024	ZEDEDA	$72.0M Series C	Keith Block	ARCH Venture Partners, Clear Ventures, F-Prime Capital Partners, FTX Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lux Capital, Mubadala, Prosperity7 Ventures, Y Combinator, Arash Ferdowsi, Balaji Srinivasan, Eoghan McCabe, Karim Atiyeh, Scott Belsky, 5G Open Innovation Lab, Almaz Capital, Chevron Technology Ventures, Claudio Fayad, Endeavor Catalyst, Forward Investments, Juniper Networks, LDV Partners, Porsche Ventures, Arvind Rao
Feb 1, 2024	Octomind	$5.0M Seed	Cherry Ventures	Afore Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Caffeinated Capital, Construct Capital, Countdown Capital, Cubit Capital, CVentures, Floodgate, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Picus Capital, Polychain Capital, Ravelin Capital, Saga, SLVC, Stash Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Harry Hurst, Justin Mateen, Koen Koeppen, Nicolas Berggruen, Rob Meyerson, Charlie Songhurst, Lutz Finger, Sean Mullaney
Feb 1, 2024	Daedalus	$21.0M Series A	Christian Noske	Accel, Addition, Cedar Capital Group, DST Global, Flourish Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Yoav Tzruya, Khosla Ventures, monashees, NGP Capital, Hans Tung, Silence, Team8, Yellow Ventures, Guilherme Bonifacio, Trevor Blackwell
Jan 1, 2024	Perplexity	$74.0M Series B	IVP, Daniel Gross	7BC Venture Capital, Alt Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Cedar Capital Group, CRV, E1 Ventures, Flybridge, Hanabi Capital, Romero Rodrigues, HOF Capital, Kepler Operator’s Fund, Kindred Ventures, Northzone, Preston-Werner Ventures, Rain Capital, Nakul Gupta, Safar Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, SignalFire, Spark Capital, Susa Ventures, The Hit Forge, Upload Ventures, Y Combinator, Ameet Patel, Amjad Masad, Arash Ferdowsi, Balaji Srinivasan, Bob Young, Cory Levy, Gokul Rajaram, John Collison, Jonathan Lenson, Manik Gupta, Mathilde Collin, Sahin Boydas, Sam Altman, Sam Lambert, Scott Belsky, Tobias Lutke, Tyler Willis, Guillermo Rauch, Andrej Karpathy, Austen Allred, Brad Gerstner, Dylan Field, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Jeff Bezos, Lip-Bu Tan, Nat Friedman, Naval Ravikant, Stanley Freeman Druckenmiller, Bessemer Venture Partners, Factorial Funds, NEA, Jonathan Cohen
Jan 1, 2024	Full-Life Technologies	$47.0M Life Technologies - Series B	—	Clear Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Prosperity7 Ventures
Dec 1, 2023	Quaise	$21.0M Series A	—	7BC Venture Capital, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Prelude Ventures, Preston-Werner Ventures, Safar Partners, The Hit Forge, Ulu Ventures, Bob Young, Tobias Lutke
Dec 1, 2023	Extropic AI	$14.0M Seed	Kindred Ventures	186 Ventures, 7BC Venture Capital, Accomplice VC, Alchemy Ventures, Alt Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Arrive, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Baird Capital, Baseline Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, Boston Seed Capital, CRV, E1 Ventures, FirstHand Alliance, foobar.vc, Founder Collective, General Catalyst, Global Founders Capital, Goat Capital, Gradient Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, Grotech Ventures, Haun Ventures, Christian Miele, HOF Capital, Impellent Ventures, Index Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Initialized Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Jude Gomila Rolling Fund, Kima Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, monashees, Motier Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Polychain Capital, Predictive VC, Preston-Werner Ventures, Quassar Capital, Safar Partners, Saga, Sarona Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Hit Forge, Union Square Ventures, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Ameet Patel, Amit Agarwal, Amjad Masad, Anjney Midha, Arash Ferdowsi, Balaji Srinivasan, Bob Young, Bradley Horowitz, David Chang, Drew Houston, Eric Wu, Guy Podjarny, Immad Akhund, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Lukas Biewald, Mathilde Collin, Sam Altman, Scott Belsky, Stanley Tang, Tim Griffin, Tobias Lutke, Vivek Patel, William Hockey, Aidan Gomez, Aravind Srinivas, Bryan Johnson, Chris Prucha, Farbood Nivi, Garry Tan, Ivan Zhang, Naval Ravikant, Oliver Cameron, Packy McCormick, Buckley Ventures, Julian Capital, Marque VC, OSS Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Weekend Fund

Financial History

Total Raised

N/A

Valuation

N/A

Leadership Team

Key people at Samsung NEXT Ventures.

Deep Dive

Samsung NEXT Ventures is the venture capital and startup acceleration arm of Samsung Group, founded in 2013 and headquartered in San Francisco with offices globally. Its mission is to invest in bold and ambitious founders developing transformative technologies across sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, fintech, healthtech, infrastructure, and media-tech. Samsung NEXT supports startups by providing funding, mentorship, and access to Samsung’s extensive global network of engineers, designers, and business experts, thereby fostering innovation and growth within the startup ecosystem[1][2][3].

Originating as Samsung’s strategic vehicle to identify and nurture early-stage technology startups, Samsung NEXT was established to extend Samsung’s innovation reach beyond its core hardware business. The leadership team includes David Lee (Head of Samsung NEXT), Brendon Kim (Head of Investments), and other managing directors across regions. The firm has evolved to not only invest but also run programs like the Stack Zero Grant Program for open-source software and the Q Fund for quantum computing startups, reflecting a broadening focus on frontier technologies[1].

Core Differentiators

Unique Investment Model: Samsung NEXT combines venture capital investment with operational support and access to Samsung’s global resources, enabling startups to scale efficiently.
Network Strength: Leveraging Samsung’s global footprint, the firm offers startups unparalleled access to engineering talent, design expertise, and business channels.
Track Record: With over 329 investments, including notable companies like Anodot, Branch, and DayTwo, Samsung NEXT has a strong portfolio in AI, health care, SaaS, and blockchain sectors.
Operating Support: Beyond capital, Samsung NEXT provides mentorship and runs accelerator programs to help startups refine their products and business models[1][4].

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Samsung NEXT rides the wave of rapid technological advancements in AI, blockchain, healthtech, and frontier technologies. The timing is critical as these sectors are experiencing explosive growth and disruption across industries. By investing early in these transformative technologies, Samsung NEXT not only accelerates innovation but also helps shape the future of consumer services, enterprise solutions, and infrastructure. Its influence extends beyond funding, as it actively cultivates ecosystems through grants and specialized funds, positioning Samsung as a key player in the global innovation economy[1][3].

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Samsung NEXT is poised to deepen its investments in frontier technologies such as quantum computing and AI-driven intelligent machines. Trends like AI democratization, healthtech personalization, and blockchain integration will likely shape its portfolio strategy. As Samsung NEXT continues to leverage Samsung’s global scale and expertise, its influence on the startup ecosystem is expected to grow, fostering new waves of innovation that align with Samsung’s vision of expanding human potential through technology[1][3][4].

Sources

Deep Dive

Core Differentiators

Unique Investment Model: Samsung NEXT combines venture capital investment with operational support and access to Samsung’s global resources, enabling startups to scale efficiently.
Network Strength: Leveraging Samsung’s global footprint, the firm offers startups unparalleled access to engineering talent, design expertise, and business channels.
Track Record: With over 329 investments, including notable companies like Anodot, Branch, and DayTwo, Samsung NEXT has a strong portfolio in AI, health care, SaaS, and blockchain sectors.
Operating Support: Beyond capital, Samsung NEXT provides mentorship and runs accelerator programs to help startups refine their products and business models[1][4].