LG and the hunt for the next-gen corporate incubator

Whatever you do, don’t refer to LG’s incubator program LG Nova as a corporate venture capital (CVC) outfit.LG Nova is the pointiest tip of the spear for LG, the company’s experimental playground to work with startups to explore spaces where the corporation has spotted areas ripe for future growth. Last year, we established this center to find out what those things are and grow new businesses in the new future growth areas.”The team came up with five different areas of focus, explicitly targeting aspects of the market where LG can leverage its platform and ecosystem strengths while extending its innovation reach. It started with a competition launched back in September, which it calls the “Mission for the Future,” which was met with a lot of interest from startups; LG’s team tells me it received over 1,300 proposals from more than 100 countries.LG Nova differs from many other incubators because it isn’t taking the corporate venture capital approach of investing, nor is it looking for technology proposals.