In order to stay ahead of the competition despite the fall of iconic technology giants such as Motorola, Nokia and Yahoo! Samsung has created C-Lab Creative Lab, a program that has carved out 59 start-ups to date. A Samsung-owned program designed to turn creative ideas into business opportunities and stimulate South Korean start-up ecosystem, C-Lab began as an in-house idea incubation program in 2012 and expanded externally as C-Lab Outside in 2018.
In 2012, Samsung Electronics told Business Today that its global brand value was nine, ranked by Mark Sohn of Creativity and Innovation Center. It was a 40 per cent increase compared to the previous year, and we topped the walls of the electronic industry after beating up the competitors. As the situation changed, the media and academic world analyzed our success as a result of three qualities - strong leadership, fast decision making, and employees ability to perform. However, we thought there was a crisis behind the success, as C brand companies were closely following us, and continuous innovation was required as new competitors continued to emerge. Under both C Lab Inside and C-Lab Outside Samsung encourages employees and startups to innovate and create. The Samsung in-house idea incubation program was established to discover new ideas and foster a creative corporate culture that encourages employees to turn their ideas into meaningful outcomes. There are opportunities for C-Lab Inside projects with significant market potential to launch start-ups C-Lab Spin-off, which Samsung supports through seed money investment and business consulting to accelerate growth, and is applicable to all Samsung employees in South Korea.
To date, 1,507 employees have participated in 365 C-Lab projects, which are available to all Samsung employees in South Korea. Salted is one of the first spin-off startups that is generating sales in the golf sports industry for its innovative fitness tracking and coaching solution that uses smart insoles to analyze weight shifting, swing data, balance data, and posture data. TagHive Inc. was another spin-off whose self-assessment solution has been deployed in over 1000 schools in India and South Korea.
Samsung Electronics has invested $26 million over the past six years to support 59 C-Lab Inside spin-off startups. There are 30 startups that have raised over $100 million in follow-up investments, and their overall corporate value has surpassed $460 million.