Samsung Electronics announced on December 29, 2025, in Korea that it will showcase C-Lab startups at CES 2026, held from January 6 to 9. The company will operate a dedicated C-Lab exhibition area in Eureka Park at the Venetian Expo, the startup zone of the event. Participating startups will display technologies in fields such as AI, robotics, and digital health.
“Samsung supports C-Lab startups through CES as a platform to validate innovative technologies and build momentum for global growth,” said Byoung Chul Lee, Vice President and Head of the Creativity & Innovation Center at Samsung Electronics. “This year, expanded participation from regional startups highlights the continued evolution of the C-Lab ecosystem.”
Since its inception in 2012, Samsung has incubated 959 projects and startups through the C-Lab program. This year, the exhibition features 15 startups: eight from C-Lab Outside directly incubated by Samsung Electronics, four from Samsung Financial C-Lab Outside operated by Samsung Financial Networks, two from the internal C-Lab Inside program, and one jointly incubated with the Daegu Creative Economy Innovation Center.
Samsung expanded C-Lab Outside to Daegu, Gwangju, and Gyeongbuk province since 2023. The program provides workspace, stage-based consulting, and collaboration opportunities with Samsung and its affiliates. This supports startups without requiring relocation to Seoul and fosters local innovation. To date, 40 regional startups have been incubated. At CES 2026, seven startups from these regions will participate, the largest regional presence in C-Lab history at the event.
Repla, a Gyeongbuk-based plastic recycling startup from C-Lab Outside, received a CES 2026 Innovation Award for its Puri-Checker device, which analyzes plastic composition ratios. “For a regional startup, collaborating with a global company like Samsung has been a valuable opportunity,” said Dong-eun Seo, CEO of Repla. “Plastic recycling is a global challenge and CES provides an important platform to explore international market opportunities.”
The seven regional startups include:
Stress Solution from Gyeongbuk, which offers an AI-based personalized mental-care sound-creation solution.
Deepscent from Gwangju, providing an AI-powered digital scent solution tailored to every space.
Elevenliter from Daegu, delivering AI-powered diagnostics for progressive diseases in pets.
AunionAI from Gwangju, featuring a web-based AI solution for automated multilingual dubbing and subtitles with expressive voices and sound effects.
Repla from Gyeongbuk, specializing in enzyme-purified recycled plastic free of impurities.
Univa from Daegu, offering an on-device multimodal large-language-model solution.
10kM.ai from the Daegu Creative Economy Innovation Center, providing an enterprise AI video-production solution that generates, edits, and monetizes videos.
C-Lab Inside, Samsung’s internal venture program, has showcased projects at CES annually since 2016 to assess global market response and business potential. This year, two AI-driven projects selected for innovation, scalability, and completeness will appear: ChronoMix, an AI solution for object-centric video composition, and EZ Reco, a generative AI platform for electronics recommendations based on expert knowledge.
Four startups from Samsung Financial C-Lab Outside will participate at CES 2026 for the first time, reflecting Samsung’s expanded open innovation across affiliates. These startups seek global collaborations using Samsung’s incubation expertise. The participants are:
Selectstar from Samsung Life Insurance, offering copyright-cleared datasets and an all-in-one AI evaluation platform.
Datumo from Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, providing cyber risk modeling to quantify and reduce financial impacts of cyberattacks.
WINNING.I from Samsung Card, featuring next-generation identity verification (eKYC) powered by simultaneous fingerprint and face biometrics.
Pillsang from Samsung Securities, delivering a real-time phishing detection solution using on-device AI.
C-Lab startups received 17 CES 2026 Innovation Awards from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), including two Best of Innovation Awards. MangoSlab and StudioLab, both from C-Lab Inside that later spun off as independent startups, won the Best of Innovation honors.
