LG Electronics spins off X-UP, 4 other in-house venture firms

LG Electronics Inc. said on Thursday it is spinning off five promising in-house venture firms as separate entities to strengthen South Korea’s burgeoning startup ecosystem.

Six teams participated in LG’s demo day, or a showcase day, to pitch their ideas to other employees and investors at LG Science Park, its research center, last week, and five of them qualified as spin-offs, it said.

The five teams are Shinsun Go (shinsun means "fresh" in Korean), which showed off a low-temperature distribution system; X-UP, which unveiled a robot solution that tracks the condition of grass on golf courses to predict and manage damage; Found Objet, which demonstrated a business-to-business recycled plastic transaction matching system; Qcumber, which introduced a local food pickup service platform; and Masket, which proposed a performing arts mobile ticketing service.

"We are leaving LG’s boundaries. However, we will continue our cooperation with LG to provide our customers with new experiences,” said Lee Yong-soo, chief executive of X-UP.

LG said it will complete the spin-off process by the end of June after negotiating with the five venture firms on the size of LG’s initial investment amount and other conditions.

The electronics giant has been operating in-house venture nurturing programs since 2020.

The company introduced a new in-house venture development program, Studio 341, in June 2023.

The name, Studio 341, was taken from the address 341 Yeonji-dong, Busanjin-gu, Busan, where Lucky Goldstar, LG’s previous company name, was established in 1958.

TEAMED UP WITH BLUEPOINT PARTNERS

LG said this time it has collaborated with Bluepoint Partners, a local startup accelerator that specializes in startup development, to shorten the time needed to decide on in-house venture firms.

Previously, it took about a year to select in-house venture firms. But through the cooperation with Bluepoint Partners, it has taken six months this time to go through all the necessary processes, LG said.

Of 110 ideas, 13 teams were selected for the first screening, and six teams passed to the second round, LG said.

LG and Bluepoint Partners will jointly invest up to 400 million won ($297,530) in each of the five chosen teams.

“LG will continue to cooperate with the spin-offs so that they can grow into successful big companies,” said Lee Sam-soo, LG’s chief strategy officer.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.