Samsung NEXT, Samsung’s investment arm, has announced the rollout of its early stage startup investment and M&A efforts in Europe.
The announcement marks the start of the firm’s expansion plans in Europe beginning with its Berlin headquarters, adding to existing offices in Korea, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York and Tel Aviv. The company plans to open additional locations throughout Europe within the next year.
Felix Petersen, recently appointed as managing director of Samsung NEXT Europe, will lead the European investments and M&A efforts. Petersen is a serial entrepreneur who was previously a partner at Faber Ventures in Lisbon. His career follows a number of successful exits including geospatial company Plazes AG, acquired by Nokia in 2008 and social networking service Amen, acquired by Tape.tv in 2013.
The investment arm will target early stage startups with a focus on fast scaling ‘frontier tech’ such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented reality and virtual reality. It will partner with European startups to grow their businesses, by leveraging its global scale to provide entrepreneurs with capital, resources, expertise and deep connections within Samsung’s ecosystem.
Since inception in 2013, Samsung NEXT has invested in more than 60 companies and has made 15 acquisitions including mobile payment solution LoopPay, cloud computing service provider Joyent, artificial intelligence platform Viv, and IoT platform SmartThings.
FinSMEs
12/07/2017