Samsung's C-Lab program supports startups in their early stage. Thanks to the C-Lab program, various Samsung employees have successfully turned their ideas into startups and raised funding. Every year, the South Korean tech giant selects a few ideas by its employees and some startup ideas from entrepreneurs outside of Samsung Electronics.
The C-Lab Outside program was started in 2018. This year, the company has decided to support 18 new outside startups. The competition for next year's startup development program was conducted online due to the whole COVID-19 situation. Over 501 startups had participated in the competition, but only 18 managed to make the cut.
The finalized startups fall into AI (Artificial Intelligence), contents and services, deep tech, health and fitness, tech for good categories.
- DeepX: South Korea's first AI-powered hardware solutions company that is improving technology for IoT devices, AR, VR, drones, smart devices, smart cards, and security cameras.
- mAy'I: A company that works on innovating customer experience in offline space with AI
- Omnious: Uses AI to enhance online shopping by automatically tag products, present recommendations, and analyzes trends.
- Select Star: A platform that collects AI-based learning data through crowdsourcing.
- Bitsensing: It develops radar technology to make smart cars and smart cities. Its technologies can also be used in surveillance, healthcare, rescue support, smart homes, and buildings.
- MindCafe: It provides ‘Anonymous Mobile Heart Healing Service' to those who are struggling with mental issues.
- Litness: A live home training service that features interactive interaction between trainers and users.
- MultiplEYE: It makes the omnidirectional depth and vision sensing hardware and software for drones and autonomous vehicles.
- Perseus: The company develops in-car technology that is compatible with major operating systems and connected car hardware vendors. It improves compatibility between various in-car hardware and software solutions using Perseus Hypervisor.
- DoubleMe: Develops a 3D capture system and the technology to convert 2D videos into dynamic 3D models in real-time for games, 3D animation, AR, VR, 3D printing, and more.
- Presence: It makes products that help teams and co-workers communicate easily and spontaneously using voice chat and voice transcription.
- Verses: It creates experiences where everyone can enjoy music through interaction.
- Platfos: A mobile gift voucher platform that lets anyone buy or redeem gift vouchers at various online or offline shops.
- Digisonic: The company makes creative and immersive media that combines spatial audio with AR/VR.
- Waddle: Helps visually impaired people to shop online conveniently.
- Pet Now: It makes apps for pets and let pet owners store critical information about their pets.
- Dot: The company aims to make the visually impaired get the necessary information more easily and quickly.
- Silvia Health: This online service diagnoses and prevents dementia through eyes, voice patterns, and tactile analysis.
These startups can get a dedicated office space with Samsung's R&D center in Seoul, mentoring from experts within Samsung, participation in local and international exhibitions, business support for up to KRW 100 million for one year.
Samsung will also hold an online demo for these startups on December 2, 2020, so that they can attract more investors. Samsung has supported a total of 500 startups since 2018 (200 startups through C-Lab Inside and 300 startups through C-Lab Outside).