Samsung NEXT Ventures

David Lee heads Samsung NEXT as the most senior investment professional. A managing director, Raymond Liao, and investment director Andy Duong support him alongside a compact team of investors and venture-operations staff. The firm operates without a formal investment committee, pushing decision rights down to the investment team to accelerate deal execution.

The firm positions itself as a strategic guide to Samsung's wider ecosystem, leveraging the parent company's business units to identify startups that can benefit from a commercial partnership. Because follow-on capital is reserved for situations where a clear, high-impact collaboration emerges, the sourcing model effectively screens for companies that Samsung's operating divisions are willing to sponsor internally.

It invests across all stages, from seed rounds to late-stage growth, with check sizes that range from $50,000 to $25 million. The firm adjusts its commitment to match the specific needs of each team, not a fixed fund-size formula or stage-specific allocation.

Samsung NEXT Ventures sits inside the broader Samsung NEXT initiative, which spans venture investing, partnerships, and internal innovation projects. The venture team handles early- and growth-stage equity deals, while other parts of Samsung NEXT focus on M&A, internal R&D, and ecosystem development, all feeding into the parent company's product and services roadmap.