Samsung Next

Samsung Next Research Investment Thesis Samsung Next is Samsung's early-stage venture arm for founders building bold technology companies in areas that can matter to Samsung's future device, software, services, and platform ecosystem. Its public positioning is broad but not unfocused: the firm says it invests in the boldest and most ambitious founders, with sector emphasis around artificial intelligence and intelligent machines, healthtech, consumer services, and frontier technology. The current homepage frames AI as a way to unlock human potential and highlights applications across enterprise software, consumer experiences, and intelligent machines. In healthtech, Samsung Next looks for software, hardware, and services that improve outcomes and experiences in non-clinical settings. In consumer services, it backs companies that create richer consumer experiences across media, gaming, fintech, mobile, and blockchain. In frontier technology, it looks for emergent technologies pursuing what it describes as the imagined and impossible. A recurring pattern across Samsung Next's own investment memos is strategic relevance to future computing surfaces. The Q Fund post says the team prefers novel technical approaches over companies that simply import AI into existing workflows, and it emphasizes technical diligence, deep research understanding, and AI grand challenges. More recent posts show that this has evolved into a strong interest in on-device AI, AI infrastructure, robotics foundation models, world models, agentic payments, privacy-preserving AI, and multimodal memory systems. The firm appears especially interested in technologies that can sit close to Samsung's device universe: edge inference, mobile and smart-home use cases, robotics, audio, video, health sensing, AI assistants, and connected consumer experiences. Stage Focus Samsung Next is best characterized as an early-stage investor with flexibility across pre-seed through Series B, and occasional later-stage participation when the company is strategically relevant. Samsung's 2017 Newsroom announcement for the Samsung NEXT Fund described a $150 million fund targeting pre-seed to Series B investments. The Q Fund announcement described a dedicated early-stage AI fund that would provide seed and Series A financing. Current activity confirms the firm still participates in Seed and Series A rounds, including Ceramic.ai's $12 million seed round, Memories.ai's $8 million seed round, Circuit & Chisel's $19.2 million seed round, Generation Lab's $11 million seed round, and Dyna's $120 million Series A. Samsung Next also participates in larger rounds such as Rain's Series B, Base Power's Series C, and Odyssey's strategic funding, so stage should not be treated as a hard screen when there is strong strategic relevance. Check Size Samsung Next does not publish a current standard check-size range on its website. The 2017 Samsung NEXT Fund was announced as a $150 million vehicle, but that source does not provide per-company check sizes. Because the current public sources do not support a reliable check-size minimum or maximum, this profile should leave structured check-size fields unknown rather than infer them from third-party estimates. Lead Tendency The strongest source-backed pattern is that Samsung Next frequently participates alongside specialist and financial lead investors rather than consistently leading rounds. Publicly sourced examples include participation in Music AI's Series A led by Connect Ventures and monashees, Ceramic.ai's seed led by NEA, Memories.ai's seed led by Susa Ventures, Dyna's Series A led by Robostrategy, CRV, and First Round Capital, Circuit & Chisel's seed led by Primary Venture Partners and ParaFi Capital, Generation Lab's seed led by Accel, and Rain's Series B led by Sapphire Ventures. This does not mean Samsung Next never leads or sets terms, but for matching purposes the conservative lead tendency is follows. Recent Activity Recent activity is active and heavily AI-centered. In February 2026, Odyssey announced investment from NVentures and Samsung Next to accelerate research toward a general-purpose world simulator. In October 2025, Samsung Next participated in Generation Lab's $11 million seed round for longevity diagnostics and wrote about Base Power's $1 billion Series C for distributed home energy. In September 2025, the firm joined Dyna's $120 million Series A for embodied AI robotics and Circuit & Chisel's $19.2 million seed round for agent-native payments. In August 2025, it participated in Rain's $58 million Series B for stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure. In July 2025, it joined Memories.ai's $8 million seed round for large visual memory models. Earlier in 2025 it backed Ceramic.ai, Primus, Music AI, Reality Defender, and other AI-related companies. The pattern suggests Samsung Next is actively deploying and is especially engaged around frontier AI infrastructure, edge AI, robotics, health, and consumer/agentic experiences. Portfolio Highlights Samsung Next's portfolio pages list a very large set of companies across AI and robotics, blockchain, fintech, healthtech, infrastructure, mediatech, and exits. AI and robotics examples include 1X, ActiveFence, Activeloop, AI21 Labs, Aporia, Apptronik, Arcee AI, BentoML, Bria, Ceramic.ai, Cleanlab, Dyna, Fiddler, Figure AI, Kumo.ai, Memories.ai, Perplexity, Reality Defender, Stability AI, Tabnine, Twelve Labs, Unsloth, Vectara, and Verbit. Healthtech examples include Atropos Health, Big Health, Bold, Calibrate, Canopy, Cynerio, Eight Sleep, Empirical Health, Function Health, Generation Lab, Glooko, Healthy.io, Huma, Lark, Maven Clinic, Nym, PocketHealth, Rune Labs, Sibel Health, Somite.ai, Sprinter Health, Terra, Uplift, and WellTheory. Select exits listed by Samsung Next include LoopPay, Mapzen, Whisk, Viv, Moves, Kngine, SafeDK, Zimperium, Unikey, and Replay. Team The official team page lists David Lee as Head of Samsung Next and Raymond Liao as Managing Director, supported by investors including Andy Duong, Diane Choi, Maneeshika Madduri, Mark Kim, Michael Shim, Vinod Joseph, Miguel Cruz, Sam Campbell, and Albert Kim. The platform page lists operational leaders including Jordan Hoffner, Josh Freeman, Angie Lee, Ashley Kraska, Fadi Zananiri, and Helen Lin. The breadth of the team reinforces that Samsung Next is not only a capital provider; it has a dedicated platform function for strategic business development, sales, brand and communications, and people operations. Decision Process Samsung Next does not publish a formal decision timeline or investment committee process. The Q Fund post offers some process clues for deep AI: the team values technical diligence, research depth, and novel approaches more than early revenue models. The platform page and multiple investment memos indicate that Samsung Next also evaluates strategic relevance to Samsung's broader ecosystem. For workflow purposes, the safest structured decision process is investment committee or partnership, with timeline unknown. Warm introductions are helpful but not explicitly required; the website includes a public Typeform for founders. Founder Preferences The firm favors ambitious founders working on technically difficult, category-shaping products. In AI, Samsung Next appears to prefer founders with deep technical credibility, research insight, and the ability to build proprietary infrastructure rather than wrapper applications. In healthtech and consumer services, it looks for founders using software, hardware, and services to improve user experiences and outcomes outside traditional clinical or enterprise settings. The platform language suggests the firm values founders who can benefit from strategic business development with Samsung business units and partners. Geographic Focus Samsung Next is headquartered in Mountain View, California according to its LinkedIn profile, and Samsung's 2017 Newsroom announcement described a global footprint including Mountain View, New York, San Francisco, Korea, and Tel Aviv at that time. Current investing appears global: recent and listed portfolio companies include U.S., European, Israeli, Korean, and other international startups. The practical geographic focus is global, with strong U.S. and major technology ecosystem coverage.