Sung Yang

Sung Hoon Yang is a career corporate venture investor at Samsung Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Samsung Group (Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, or SVIC). He holds a bachelor's degree in polymer science and both a master's and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Seoul National University, and he entered venture investing after building deep domain expertise in the semiconductor and display industries — the core of Samsung's business.

Yang joined Samsung Ventures around 2011, serving for roughly six and a half years as a Korea-based chief/senior investment manager before relocating to the United States, where he became a general manager and senior director of Samsung Ventures America from about 2018. In that role he oversaw Samsung Ventures' investment activities across the firm's US, Europe, and Israel offices, focusing on materials, equipment, software, and data services alongside emerging fields such as enterprise software, quantum computing, and biotechnology. His technical background made him a natural fit for Samsung's strategic bets in hard-tech and semiconductor-adjacent startups.

He was recognized on the Global Corporate Venturing (GCV) Powerlist 2021 (ranked in the top 25, sharing the #6 slot alongside Samsung Ventures colleagues David Goldschmidt and David Lee) — a marker of his standing among the world's most influential corporate venture investors. He has since been described as VP and Head of the Semiconductor Investment team, and more recently as Head Vice President of the Deep Technology Investment Office at Samsung Ventures headquarters in Seoul.

Beyond deal sourcing, Yang takes active governance roles in portfolio companies; for example, he serves as a director/board observer at FemtoMetrix, a semiconductor optical-metrology company, reflecting Samsung Ventures' strategic interest in advanced chip-manufacturing technology.

• Strategic, technology-led investing: As a corporate VC, Yang backs companies whose technology aligns with Samsung's semiconductor, display, and deep-tech roadmap — materials, semiconductor equipment/metrology, and enabling software.
• Deep-tech and hard-science bias: Focus areas include semiconductors, quantum computing, enterprise software, data services, and biotech/pharma tech — sectors that reward his materials-science PhD and industry background.
• Global sourcing: Historically ran Samsung Ventures' investing across the US, Europe, and Israel, so he evaluates deals with a cross-border, innovation-hub lens rather than a single geography.
• Corporate-fit "yes": Because Samsung Ventures (AUM reported at $2.5B+, deploying on the order of ~$200M/year) invests strategically, a strong "yes" signal is a clear technical fit with Samsung's core businesses and the potential for commercial/partnership synergy — not just financial return.