LG NOVA’s 2023 Festival: A Leap Towards Global Collaborative Innovation and Expanded Investments
LG Electronics‘ North American Innovation Center (LG NOVA) held its ‘Innovation Festival 2023‘ on October 25-26 (local time) at The Hibernia in San Francisco, USA, under the theme ‘Growth Through Innovation.’ At this event, LG NOVA engaged in discussions on innovative strategies for new business areas with global startups and investors.
Since its launch at the end of 2020, LG NOVA has been hosting the annual Innovation Festival. The festival is a platform where global startup representatives and investors gather to expand collaboration and discover new business opportunities.
This year, at the Innovation Festival, LG NOVA announced the upgraded plan for the ‘Mission for the Future’ competition, targeting global startups with innovative ideas.
‘Mission for the Future’ is a project aimed at discovering and supporting the commercialization of startups with innovative ideas in various fields such as digital healthcare, cleantech, immersive AI, electrification, and smart life solutions, seeking new business opportunities. In the past two years, a total of more than 50 startups have been selected to explore collaboration with LG Electronics.
Starting this year, LG NOVA has transitioned from a contest format with a specific deadline for selecting startups to an annual ongoing operation system, allowing for continuous proposals for ideas and collaboration. This change opens up more possibilities for collaboration with more startups and ensures a more intimate cooperation with the selected ones to respond agilely to the rapidly changing market demands. Startups with good ideas can now knock on LG’s door for collaboration at any time.
Startups whose ideas are adopted will promote the commercialization of the idea with LG NOVA for more than six months and also have opportunities to attract investment through the NOVA Prime Fund and LG NOVA’s investment partners.
Last August, LG NOVA joined hands with professional venture capital firm Clearbrook to accelerate future investments, agreeing to expand the existing NOVA Prime Fund, which was at the level of 20 million dollars, to over 100 million dollars.
Meanwhile, this year’s Innovation Festival attempted various changes to increase participant engagement with the theme of a co-creating festival.
Firstly, there was a significant increase in sessions, such as panel discussions and brainstorming, that allowed attendees to participate directly. Additionally, the number of invited speakers expanded from 70 last year to 75 this year, intending to broaden the base of open innovation through voices from various industries.
Suk-Woo Lee, the head of LG Electronics’ North American Innovation Center, stated, “LG NOVA has opened a new horizon for collaboration for business by building a strong community of innovators and a powerful network of investors over the past two years.” He added, “We will accelerate the discovery of innovative future businesses that will offer F.U.N (First, Unique, New) customer experiences.”
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