At the heart of European tech innovation: meet Felix Petersen, MD of Samsung NEXT Europe
Prior to their European launch, TOA.life has an exclusive chat with Samsung NEXT’s European MD, Felix Petersen, about Berlin, his love of Europe, and his hopes for the future with Samsung NEXT.
The relationship between Felix Petersen and his home town of Berlin is a symbiotic one.
Scratch the surface of Berlin’s tech scene and you’ll find traces of Felix’s influence everywhere, and vice versa. His connection to the European tech and startup scene is deep, his knowledge is broad — and he has a knack for being in the right place at the right time: he was based in Lisbon just as that city’s startup scene blossomed too.
Felix is also an archetypical TOA person: an inter-disciplinarian who wants to bring people and technology together in a powerful, meaningful way. And now, appointed managing director of Samsung NEXT Europe, a new adventure starts for him — and it may have a profound effect on the European tech world.
Felix’s journey to Samsung NEXT is a fascinating one, and its variety is testimony to his relentless search for cutting edge technologies. He launched two of Berlin’s pioneering and innovative startups, Plazes and Amen, worked on major international strategic initiatives with Nokia, is an old hand when it comes to attracting money from all over the world, and has spent the last decade or so investing in and nurturing new tech talent.
Felix’s background explains why Samsung NEXT picked him to be MD of the investment arm’s brand new European operations.
Samsung NEXT is the Korean tech giant’s innovation programme which aims to build, grow and scale smart ideas, products and businesses all over the world.
It has grown quickly, with offices opening in Korea, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, Tel Aviv — and now, at the heart of Europe’s tech scene, in Berlin.
Samsung NEXT is announcing the launch of its new European operations at TOA. It has a huge presence at the event, which will include a fireside chat with Felix on the main stage on the 12th of July.
TOA.life spoke to Felix about his past, present and future — about his excitement at Samsung NEXT’s potential, his belief in the strength European tech businesses, his love of Berlin, and what he’s looking forward to as Samsung NEXT appear at TOA this year.
Don’t miss out: book your ticket to TOA and be part of this new wave of innovation and opportunity…
Felix’s early days in tech hinted at the exciting present.
Felix has been building things online since the late 90s, and in the early noughties he sensed a step-change in how technology was starting to work.
“In 2003, I realised I wanted to build products. I missed the first wave of startups and didn’t really know about venture capital or how startups worked — but when Web 2.0 came, in the form of del.icio.us and Flickr, I knew I had to get involved.”
He co-founded the pioneering Geospatial company Plazes, which allowed users to do something quietly revolutionary: to let the world know what they were doing and where they were doing it, from their phone or laptop.
“Back then, publishing on the web was still for geeks or big corporations — but suddenly blogging happened and I was fascinated by the social web. In Plazes, we created this location-based service, bringing the real world to the sharable, social web.
“We sold Plazes to Nokia HERE in Berlin, and then we brought companies, like Dopplr, from other countries to Berlin. So Berlin was really put on the map, and that period lies at the root of a lot of what you see now — really cool things came out of that time.”
Felix says that he may be a Berliner by birth, but he’s a European at heart, and believes that big changes are happening right now.
Felix’s subsequent investments (he was a very early investor in Soundcloud, for instance) were as much in Berlin as a capital as they were in the startups. He helped convince Soundcloud’s founders to choose Berlin for the company’s global headquarters. Now, a decade later, Berlin is so obviously the right place to be that Samsung NEXT have chosen it as their HQ too. So what is it that makes Berlin a special place?
“Berlin has always been different — a town on the edge. The energy and the culture here means that there is freedom to create, both physically and intellectually. You can’t replicate ‘Berlin’ somewhere else.”
“Berlin is becoming the ‘platform for Europe.’ That’s why we chose Berlin for Samsung NEXT.”
This isn’t some generic tech-scene buzz. Berlin’s cultural and political history, explains Felix, makes it uniquely suited to be a tech hub:
“When the wall came down, the city itself was a startup! A lot of big corporations had moved elsewhere in Germany. So Berlin had to find its own niche, and the city’s USP was the creative industries and its cultural openness. And now people from abroad instantly feel that it is different, and want to be here. Things are very different now.”
“Now, you can make a living being creative! There are tens of thousands of tech-based jobs here now, and 40% of people who work in Berlin startups are from overseas. Berlin is becoming the ‘platform for Europe.’ That’s why we chose Berlin for Samsung NEXT. You can fundraise from here, build a product from here, you can do it all. Berlin is the sweet spot of the European tech scene.”
A huge shift may be coming.
“I’m really, really bullish on Europe. And right now, Europe has a very interesting advantage over the rest of the world. We’re living in exponential times — it would not be surprising if there was a huge shift to European influence in the next few years.”
“In Lisbon, no one is building solely for the Portuguese market — they’re building globally.”
“Because Europe has so many countries, cultures and languages, if you launch a company in Europe, you have to think globally from day one — especially if you are from a small domestic market. In Lisbon, for instance, no one is building solely for the Portuguese market — they’re building globally.”
Europe’s deep technical talent and the strength of its traditional industries — readied for automation — means exciting times are ahead. And Samsung NEXT aims to become the gateway for European entrepreneurs to build, grow and scale their startups.
For Samsung NEXT to be part of the future, it needs to be in Europe.
Europe is possibly preparing the world for one more huge technological shift, and Berlin is leading the way. And Felix hopes Samsung NEXT can capitalise on this coming change.
“At Samsung NEXT, we’ll be assisting startups by providing support, structure, deep connections and funding — to develop revolutionary companies.
“And,” Felix says, “Samsung is an interface company. Samsung makes these powerful interfaces that connect people with the whole world — through data, other people, and knowledge. Right now the smartphone or the TV is that interface but in the future it will be a natural conversation that you have with your car, or your house, or contact lenses, or brain implants. We will invest in areas like AR, VR and AI, that will enable and transform how us humans are interfacing with the world.”
“For Samsung NEXT to be an integral part of this change, we want to be in Europe.”
Here’s where new technologies like blockchain excite him a lot, as they have the potential to become the next generation protocol.
“Apart from the hype, blockchain is hard to understand! But many of the blockchain experts are based in Berlin. And the decentralised web will be, I hope, a paradigm shift back to a more open web.”
“The cards are being re-shuffled and that’s an opportunity for Samsung. We are the biggest phone manufacturer in the world, and the future lies in software and services. We’re very interested in anything that empowers the user and reconnects them with their own data.
“A phone could be the secure wallet for everything — your contracts, citizenship, healthcare records, etc — and it means that each person owns everything about them and can share this data with whoever needs to see it, like a doctor for example. So in order for Samsung NEXT to be an integral part of this change, we want to be in Europe.”
You won’t miss Samsung NEXT at TOA 2017.
Samsung NEXT has a huge presence at the Funkhaus during TOA. Felix will be there and he’s eager to speak to as many innovators and startup founders as possible.
“It was natural to choose TOA to introduce Samsung NEXT — it fits us really well! TOA captures the European spirit perfectly: it’s real, down-to earth, accessible and open-minded. We want to focus on the “NEXT” as much as “Samsung,” so we chose TOA in order to make meaningful connections and do business in a fun environment, and show that we have a startup culture at heart.”
“We are taking our European expansion very seriously. We’ll have a lot of the Samsung NEXT management at TOA, including David Eun. We’re going to be sitting down with startups and working hard during our open office hours, so come and speak to us! We will also dedicate a lot of future time to other European tech hubs such as Paris, London etc.”
“We want people to know that there’s no mumbo-jumbo with Samsung NEXT. We are not a ‘corporate innovation unit’ — Samsung Next is a respected, experienced investor. We value speed and aren’t afraid of change. It’s important that people understand that we won’t put limits on the innovation of startups, but instead we will help them reach the next level as quickly as possible.”
“Now you can do it in Europe and be among the top players.”
Samsung NEXT, Felix says, is looking for transformative tech, true innovations and to develop core businesses. Berlin is the right place to do this, and Samsung NEXT is launching in Europe at the right time.
“Maybe ten years ago,” Felix noted as we wrapped up our conversation, “every founder in Europe saw themselves eventually ending up in San Francisco — but now they can see themselves in Europe long term. And Europe is not just “viable” — it’s thriving!
“Now you can do it in Europe and be among the top players. And I’m looking for Samsung NEXT to be a filter for quality and help these new businesses grow!”
These are exciting times.
So if you’re building, coding, making or doing something that is pushing things forward, you might want to get yourself to TOA, where Felix and the Samsung NEXT team are waiting to chat with you…
