Palo Alto’s Varsity Theatre doesn’t look much different on the outside than it did six months ago, but the University Avenue landmark just blocks from Stanford has been transformed on the inside and is now open for business as part of the Samsung Open Innovation Center. Samsung’s Silicon Valley startup accelerator is recruiting entrepreneurs who are willing to share their ideas in exchange for funding and access to Samsung employees and technologies that could help get their ideas off the ground.
The former cinema and bookstore is a fitting location for the startup accelerator, which seems likely to focus on media innovation. The Open Innovation Center, which plans campuses in several cities, is headed by David Eun, a media industry executive who headed up content partnerships for Google. The accelerator group includes Dwipal Desai, who headed up YouTube’s mobile efforts, as well as former managers from AOL, The Daily, Hearst Media and Pulse News. Marc Shedroff, who is leading the launch of Samsung’s Palo Alto accelerator, previously worked as head of entertainment and sports partnerships at YouTube.
Samsung has said it wants to open more startup accelerators in places like New York, Boston, Austin, Israel and Russia. New York is already home to a number of the team’s members. In addition to incubating startups, the Samsung Open Innovation Center seeks promising partnerships, acquisition opportunities, and venture capital investments.
Investing in promising American startups is not new for Samsung; the company already has launched two venture funds in Silicon Valley with a combined war chest of more than $1 billion. And that’s just a small part of Samsung’s overall investment in the U.S. – it also has major manufacturing plants here, including a new facility in San Jose and a manufacturing plant in Austin that the company will use to make chips for mobile devices.
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