"Last year, preliminary global startups following the independent PrimeFocus Health from LG NOVA are preparing to launch. The next-generation unicorn business of LG Electronics will emerge from here."
Lee Seok-woo, vice president of LG Electronics North America Innovation Center (LG NOVA), said on the 7th (local time) during a booth tour at CES 2025 held in Las Vegas, USA, the world's largest consumer electronics and IT exhibition.
Based in Silicon Valley, LG NOVA is an organization established at the end of 2020 to discover new business models and accelerate cooperation with innovative startups in the industry. Every year, they conduct "tasks for the future" to identify and nurture startups with innovative ideas, developing new businesses for LG Electronics through cooperation with them and promoting commercialization. This year at CES, under the theme "Innovation is here, co-creating innovation," they opened an exhibition hall and revealed projects under internal development in cooperation with startups at the stage of concretizing collaboration with LG NOVA.
In May last year, LG NOVA produced the healthcare independent corporation PrimeFocus Health in the United States. This marks LG NOVA's first spin-out achievement in exploring new business opportunities for LG Electronics through collaboration with promising startups in future industrial sectors from Silicon Valley. PrimeFocus Health originated from LG NOVA's new business incubation organization and grew into an independent corporation. It provides care solutions that assist in early diagnosis and post-management and recovery of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. By monitoring real-time biometric information of patients, it enables the identification and prevention of chronic disease risks, and if abnormal signs occur, it quickly initiates treatment.
LG NOVA is advancing its business model through collaboration with healthcare startups selected from the global startup competition "tasks for the future." Currently, initial go-to-market (GTM) efforts are underway in the U.S. state of West Virginia, where they are preparing to implement pilot projects with the Marshall Health Network. The Marshall Health Network is a healthcare chain providing medical services to approximately 1.5 million people residing in West Virginia and nearby southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky.
At this year’s CES, they will unveil an AI-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. They plan to utilize an easily accessible tablet PC as a consolidation between medical staff and patients, showcasing telemedicine technology based on personalized programs and data.
Project Relief AI, which will be unveiled for the first time at this year's CES, is also a next-generation startup preparing to launch under LG NOVA. It is a platform that monitors and tracks users' mental health through advanced diagnostic technology based on AI. Demonstrations will include AI chat journaling, which records and analyzes users' moods and thoughts, along with features that recommend activities by professional therapists.
Following health tech, LG NOVA plans to intensify its new business with startups discovered through "tasks for the future" in future industrial areas such as clean tech and AI, which LG Electronics is focusing on. They aim to showcase new startups through continuous spin-outs in these fields and ultimately grow them into "NOVA CON."
The vice president noted, "The unique new business development program established from the early days of LG NOVA is now fully operational, and the vision of LG NOVA is being realized one by one."