Henry Chung joined South Korea-headquartered electronics, chemical and telecoms conglomerate LG’s electronics manufacturing arm LG Electronics in 2010 and is a vice-president of corporate venture capital.
Chung has been joined by Dong-Su Kim, one of South Korea-headquartered electronics conglomerate Samsung’s most seasoned corporate venturers in the US, who LG in May 2018 to set up a new venture fund called LG Technology Ventures.
The new venture capital unit oversees investments from LG Group affiliates – LG Electronics, LG Chem, LG Display and LG Uplus – which raised investment funds totalling W—430bn ($400m) in March last year. These LG firms will help make investment decisions when LG Technology Ventures identifies strategically relevant startups, especially those with technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and auto components.
Furthermore, LG will acquire startups, make equity investments and hire or collaborate with external industry experts. Under an open innovation strategy, the group has invested in South Korea-based AI-empowered strategic consulting platform developer Acryl and Japan-based communication and industrial robot developer Robostar.
As general manager of Samsung Ventures America, Kim had led deals for Samsung in more than 20 companies, including data storage technology developer Pure Storage and memory-based IT infrastructure equipment manufacturer Netlist, which were floated on the New York in October 2015 and Nasdaq stock exchanges respectively in November 2006
Previously, Chung had been a director of LG Innovation Ventures from 2010 to 2012 before ascending to senior director and managing director of the unit, a role he held until the promotion to his current role in 2016.
Chung scouts and conducts venture deals, engages in open innovation and corporate development activities in North America and reports to I. P. Park, chief technology officer of LG Electronics based in the South Korea headquarters.
During his time at LG Innovation Ventures, the unit participated in a $15m series E round for US-based cloud computing technology provider Joyent in October 2014. Joyent was acquired by electronics producer Samsung in June 2016.
Russia-based facial and 3D gesture recognition technology developer 3DiVi announced in March last year that it was expecting to close a $2m venture funding in June 2018 from LG Innovation Ventures and from other undisclosed investors.
Before joining LG, Chung had spent four years as a director of the direct investment team at US-based debt and equity provider Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)’s venture capital investment arm SVB Capital, where he invested from two funds in different technology realms ranging from information technology hardware, internet, cleantech and life sciences.
Before that, Chung was a vice-president from 2003 to 2005 at a mergers and acquisitions strategic consulting firm Newforth Partners, which is now part of boutique investment banking firm Woodside Capital Partners.
In addition, Chung was a founding partner of Imagicians Interactive, an internet strategy and consulting services provider based in Boston, in the US state of Massachusetts, that was sold to a traditional advertising agency Lapham-Miller in 2002. He was also a management consultant at boutique strategic consulting firm Fletcher Spaght.
Chung began his professional career as a computer programmer developing system dynamics models at Mitre, a nonprofit organisation that manages federally funded research and development centres, and as a DNA researcher at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
