People are moving towards business and are thriving to build their own start-up companies. You can see new ideas and innovations flourishing around every corner. However, all they lack is capital, which can render them with a base to build their business infrastructure. 


To cater to the resource requirements of such innovative minds, who have the potential to outsmart the existing technologies and businesses, Samsung’s has a venture capital entity SVIC (Samsung Venture Investment Corporation) which funds and finances the monetary and resource requirements of some startups.


What is Samsung Venture Investment Corporation?
It is a venture capital firm which is developed by Samsung with an intent to provide seed investments to early-stage startups. The company typically invests in 

  • Consumer Electronics
  • Information and Communication
  • Software, internet, Clouds
  • Life science and Healthcare
  • Telecommunication,
  • Movie and Video sectors
  • Remote computing & High-performance Computing 
  • Cybersecurity,
  • Mobile privacy, devices & mobile infrastructure
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Automotive-Grade Safety, and Security.

SVIC has invested venture capital in various startups across the globe. The US,  UK, Israel, Canada, China, South Korea and Japan are amongst the top nations to have received the highest and most number of investments from VIC up till now. Simply, the company aims to invest in startups that have potential business viability and can aid Samsung is expanding its business and enriching consumers with better service and product experiences.

However, being one of the biggest industrialist brands in the world, getting money from Samsung is not child’s play unless you have the idea or a business that has potential to either bring handsome outcomes or bring up a change in the world market.

However, out of millions of Indian startups, only 4 has managed to convince Samsung’s SVIC to invest in their businesses. Samsung Venture Investment Corporation has decided to invest an around a total of  $8.5 million (approximately Rs. 60 crores) in four Indian startups.

Mr Aloknath De, Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Samsung R&D Institute, Bengaluru shared in an interview “ SVIC is planning to make 100 investments (each amounting $1 million to $5 million) in India in the next three to five years.”


But before starting to think upon how to start a business that can yield you great fundings, let us read about the four entrepreneurs who managed to get funding from SVIC is:

1. OSLabs (Indus OS): A Mumbai based System Application Company
OSLabs has developed a curated app store, an improvised platform for mobile application. It goes by the name “Indus App Bazaar”. It is staging over 400,000 mobile apps in multiple Indian languages. This app-store was used by Samsung to launch the new Galaxy Store.

2. Gnani.ai A Bengaluru based startup that works on Speed TechnologyGnani.ai works with Artificial Intelligence Technology including automatic speech recognition and natural language processing in Indic languages. They aim to build a voice assistant and as well as develop a system for speech analytics

3. Silvan Innovation Labs: Another Bengaluru based startup that provides IoT Solutions (Internet-based Things)
Silvan Innovation Labs provides Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for domestic and organisational uses. It is already a leader in line and has pioneered solutions for smart spaces. They are providing solutions on safety, security, comfort, convenience and energy management.

4. Un-Named: The fourth start-up is yet to be named but its vision is related to innovating in computer-based technologies. 


The Chief Technology office also said that “The Indian startups have flourished enough over the past few years as the early-stage companies are working on top of the line technology and services. Especially in areas like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, cloud and other emerging technology solutions and services,”

He briefly described how Samsung is committed to working with Indian Startups that have promising results and are headed by innovative entrepreneurs. It is a win-win situation for both. Startups to scale their businesses with better resource availability. On the other hand, Samsung gets an opportunity to provide better offerings to its consumers across the globe.

“We feel it is the right time to start investing in Indian start-ups as deep-tech is now growing fast here and the whole ecosystem is also maturing. We can aid startups in terms of UX support, tech validation and go-to-market,” De further added.


In regard to obtain funding from Samsung, Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder and CEO, OSLabs said, “As we look forward towards offering the Indus experience to wider audiences, Samsung’s funding will help us reach our goal of empowering 100 million Indian users with a content and commerce platform, that too in the language of their choice. This will ensure a truly inclusive digital growth and an improved user experience for everyone.”


Also, Samsung’s investment in Gnani’s ASR engine will yield Samsung to power its Bixby vernacular service in the future. 


And apparently, an installed base of over 6,000 homes and 12 live communities, Silvan Innovation Lab’s IoT platform, products & solutions will enable Samsung to add value to its efforts and have all its products IoT ready by 2020.