Samsung Electronics was recognized as the most active supporter of European startups at an official ceremony of the Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) Corporate Startup Stars, a pan-European award to honor the most proactive corporate supporters of Europe’s young companies, held recently in Brussels, Belgium.

Startup Europe Partnership is a platform established by the European Commission in 2014 with an aim to scale up Europe’s startups through strategic partnerships with global corporations. Two of SEP’s founding partners, an open innovation advisory firm Mind the Bridge based in Italy and the United States and a British innovation foundation Nesta, hold the SEP Corporate Startup Stars annually to showcase the best models of corporate-startup collaboration.

SEP Corporate Startup Stars Awards has seven award categories including ‘Accelerator,’ ‘Procurement,’ ‘Investment,’ ‘M&A’ and ‘Open Innovation Approach,’ Among these, Samsung ranked first for the highest award – ‘SEP Europe’s Corporate Startup Stars’ – this year, acknowledged among local startups in the continent as the friendliest and the most rigorous supporter in terms of company acceleration, procurement and investments.

“Collaboration between established corporates and startups benefits them both. Startups get the resources and market insight to help them scale up, while their supporters are driven with innovation and cultural change,” commented Jyrki Tapani Katainen, the European Commission Vice President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness. “Organizations cooperating well should be recognized as trailblazers that can inspire others.”

“The explosion of data and the revolution in core technologies is creating incredible opportunities in nearly every sector,” said Roberto Mauro, Managing Director of Europe at Samsung Strategy & Innovation Center. “By combining venture investments with Samsung’s vast technology ecosystem – spanning innovation, research, procurement, sales, and marketing through local, regional, and corporate channels – we can enable the next wave of innovators in Europe and around the world.”

In Europe, Samsung has been engaging with startups in ways that are uniquely tailored to each market – accelerating the development of innovative products and services in industries such as cybersecurity, healthcare, retail, banking, logistics, mobility, real estate, and education.

On the wider international stage, during the last two decades, Samsung Electronics has worked tirelessly to build a broad and deep engagement with a variety of startup communities – particularly those active in hardware, software and services, mobile communications, consumer electronics, and automotive industries. Last year, Samsung invested more than $200 million in 75 startups worldwide and expects the investments to continue to grow in the future. Global startups and companies have also been provided access to a spectrum of Samsung global venture platforms, including:

• Samsung Strategy & Innovation Center (SSIC): Global organization focused on driving the next generation of growth for Samsung Electronics in the new data economy, through innovation, investment, and mergers & acquisitions.

• Samsung Catalyst Fund (SCF): Evergreen multi-stage venture capital fund that invests globally in strategic ideas for Samsung’s mobile, device solutions and consumer electronics groups. Investment spans across innovation in areas that include: artificial intelligence, smart factory and robotics, digital health, autonomous systems, and cloud and data infrastructure.

• Samsung NEXT: Builds, grows and scales transformative software and services to complement Samsung’s global hardware footprint. A leading driver of Samsung’s transformation into an integrated hardware and software company, Samsung NEXT combines product development, investment, M&A and partnerships under one roof. Samsung NEXT operates an $150M fund to invest in early-stage software and services startups.

• Samsung Ventures: Early-to-late-stage investments that are relevant to the current and next generation of Samsung products and services.

• Samsung Research: Collaborates with universities, research institutes, corporates and startups to drive innovation for Samsung’s Consumer Electronics and IT & Mobile businesses.

The Work Continues

All of us at Samsung are enormously proud of this award. We see it as a validation of the idea at the core of our philosophy – that great technology is the result of great partnerships. To that end, our commitment to working with the world’s most exciting and groundbreaking startups is stronger than ever. In the year ahead, we will make it our mission to foster and support big ideas, bold entrepreneurs, and transformational technologies that will have a positive effect on the region, and the world.

If you represent a startup that would benefit from a partnership with Samsung, and are interested in knowing more about the many investment and partnership programs we offer in countries and regions around the world, please reach out. We’re eager and excited to hear from you.