BA-SID Professional Person Spotlight
Dong-Su Kim
Dong-Su Kim, Ph.D. is the CEO of LG Technology Ventures. He has over thirty years of investment, strategy, planning, and technology experience. LG Technology Ventures was established in 2018 as the venture capital investment arm of the LG Group of South Korea. As the founding CEO, Dong-Su established the fund structure, hired key people, and initiated investment operations. Currently, LG Technology Ventures is managing over $480 million of fund assets and invests in early-stage information technology, automotive, manufacturing, life-sciences, energy, and advanced materials companies. Portfolio companies include Arcellx, Deel, Element Energy, Forge Nano, H2O.ai, Lygos, May Mobility, Moloco, and SES.ai.
Previously, Dong-Su was Vice President and GM of Samsung Ventures America where he managed offices in Menlo Park, Boston, London, and Tel Aviv. He has led the investment of over thirty companies in diverse sectors including semiconductors (Soft Machines, Verisilicon, Wave Computing), equipment (DCG Systems, IMS, Reno Subsystems), materials (Nanosys, NexPlanar, Voltaix), and storage systems (Pure Storage).
Prior to joining Samsung Ventures, he was a Director at Asia Evolution, an investment bank in Korea covering mid-market financing, private placement, and M&As.
Before that, he was a Director at Technology Strategy Office of Samsung Electronics. As the CTO’s staff, he was responsible for strategic venture investments and technology alliances. He also worked in technology planning for Samsung’s Telecom R&D center, responsible for discovering new research topics. Dong-Su started his professional career as a Technical Leader at Samsung Fiber Optics Business Unit in development of fiber optic components.
His past Board Director appointments include Datera, Digital Specialty Chemicals, Femtometrix, Inpria, Reno Subsystems, SBA Materials, SVXR, D2S, DCG Systems (acquired by FEI), NexPlanar (acquired by Cabot), Voltaix (acquired by Air Liquide), Panasas, and Pixtronix (acquired by Qualcomm). Dong-Su also served on the Investment Advisory Committee for Sierra Ventures.
Dong-Su has M.A. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and B.S. with Honors in Applied Physics from California Institute of Technology.