Inside Samsung's Global Innovation Center and why it's backing American software startups like SmartThings, LoopPay, Pixie, Perch, and Boxee
Samsung's big bet: put American software startups inside its most important hardware — Kai Bond still can't believe he got his own button. Tweets: @caseynewton and @reckless . Thanks: @brewpr Tweets: Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Every ‘innovation’ at the Samsung innovation center is a me-too product that's late to the market http://www.theverge.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : Our Samsung GIC piece extra-notable because @benpopper unearthed the first real details of what happened to Boxee. http://www.theverge.com/... Thanks: @brewpr
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2015 feature documents Samsung's answer to its software gap: the Global Innovation Center, which installs American startups — SmartThings, LoopPay, Pixie, Perch, Boxee — directly inside Samsung's flagship hardware rather than leaving them as standalone apps. It also surfaces the internal skepticism, with Casey Newton tweeting that every innovation at the center is a me-too product arriving late to market.
The piece reads as the origin point for what came next: within a year Samsung formalized the approach with a $1.2B four-year US IoT investment split between startups and R&D, and separately began trying to make the mothership itself act more like a startup-like internal culture reform. The GIC was the template; these were the scale-ups.
First-order effects
- The five portfolio startups gain guaranteed placement inside Samsung's most important devices — SmartThings and LoopPay effectively get distribution no independent software company could buy.
- Kai Bond and the GIC team must prove the model works fast, since the public critique from Casey Newton frames the portfolio as derivative and late rather than differentiated.
Second-order effects
- Samsung converts the experiment into committed capital, splitting the $1.2B IoT fund between startups and R&D — turning an incubator story into a procurement strategy for software capability.
- Smart TVs show the same absorption logic: Samsung adds Slingbox-style viewing features to its sets rather than partnering out, signaling that acquired-or-copied software becomes default device functionality.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, large hardware conglomerates increasingly source their software layer through startup acquisition and embedding instead of internal development — with the GIC model later visible in Bixby being threaded through fridges, QLED TVs, and Harman in-car displays.
- The deeper risk the coverage points to: incubating startups inside a hardware giant can import their products without their agility, which is exactly the cultural gap Samsung's own reform effort was launched to close.
The trend: Consumer-hardware giants are closing their software deficits by absorbing startups directly into their device lines, with dedicated innovation centers and multi-billion-dollar funds replacing organic development.