Andy Duong
Investment Director, Ventures at Samsung Next Ventures
San Francisco Bay Area
Overview
Work Experience
Investment Director, Ventures
2024 - Current
Product Principal, Ventures
2020
• Invest in series seed through C startups focused on AI, blockchain, and edge computing. • Lead web3 and generative AI end-to-end product innovation strategies across Samsung's portfolio of business lines, devices, and services. • Investor at Arrcus, BentoML, Enso, Expeto, Nirmata, Agency, Cast.ai, Space and Time, Absolute Labs, Synadia, Zettablock
Incubator Lead
2019
• Developed and deployed the global strategy for NEXT's pre-seed In Residence program, leading the program for the Silicon Valley ecosystem. • Led pre-seed investments: closing deals for UnumID, DiscreetAI, Archipelo, and BentoML. Board observer and advisor for portfolio companies. • Facilitate collaborations between Samsung business units and portfolio companies.
Entrepreneur In Residence
2017
• Launched startups/businesses in Samsung’s accelerator grounded in emerging technologies developed by Samsung R&D, spanning IoT, AR, VR, AI, robotics, and V2X. • Executed validation and customer development by networking with 'first customers' and conducting interviews to understand pain points, budget allocations, organizational decision making, and value positioning for our solutions. Used customer feedback to inform product implementation and features. Garnered pilot interests from companies through repeat engagement with 'first customers.' • Designed and developed prototypes for lean validation testing and 'first customer' demos to gauge solution efficiency/interest, gather feedback, and split test pricing curves and features. Built lead funnels, launched marketing campaigns, and executed user tests for consumer software and hardware products prior to any technical development work. • Productized the startup discovery and validation approaches into NEXT 'KO × LAB', a collaborative program to drive lean product management approaches in Samsung HQ and the South Korean startup ecosystem partners. 'KO × LAB' consists of product discovery/validation courses in addition to 1:1 project collaborations that helps teams identify and reduce risks, achieve product market fit, generate revenue, and conserve engineering resources by finding customers and gathering feedback before building solutions. Ecosystem partners included the South Korean Government organizations CCEI and TIPS.
Investor
2023
Liquid AI is a developer of AI applications that help improve human experience.
Raised $43,200,000.00 from Sandeep Vij, Breyer Capital, Tobias Lütke, Chris Prucha, Bold Capital Partners, Bob Young, Isai, Stephen Pagliuca, Capgemini and Tom Preston-Werner.
Investor
2023
Investor
2023
Investor
2021
CAST AI is the leading Kubernetes automation platform that cuts AWS, Azure, and GCP customers’ cloud costs by over 50%
Raised $73,000,000.00 from Hedosophia, Vintage Investment Partners, Creandum, Uncorrelated Ventures, Creandum, Web Summit Ventures and SAV (Scale Asia Ventures).
Investor
2022
Investor
2023
Investor
2023
Investor
2023