Edition 10 of Europe-wide Female Founder Office Hours is a key milestone for Europe’s largest diversity led founder initiative This event will bring together over 300 female founders and 150 VCs from some of the world’s leading funds The latest funding data shows that over £1.2bn has been raised by…

Ascento, a Swiss robotics company, has raised a $4.3 million funding round led by Wingman Ventures and Playfair to roll out its latest autonomous security patrolling robot to tackle the global security guard personnel shortage Ascento fits into our thesis that robotics is a multi-decade trend to watch: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith1/2023/09/18/5-reasons-robotics-is-the-next-multi-decade-trend-to-watch/?sh=3009c8ae1287

This is the twentieth in our “8 Questions” series — in which we sit down with founders in the Playfair portfolio who share their entrepreneurial journey. We first invested in Continuum Industries, an AI driven, cloud-based optioneering platform that dramatically accelerates the development of linear infrastructure, in 2020. Since then…

This is the nineteenth in our “8 Questions” series — in which we sit down with founders in the Playfair portfolio who share their entrepreneurial journey. We first invested in Vinehealth, a global oncology platform combining behavioural science and AI to deliver scalable personalised care and resarch, in 2019. Since…

Edition 9 of Europe-wide Female Founder Office Hours is a key milestone for Europe’s largest diversity led founder initiative This event will bring together over 300 female founders and 165 VCs from some of the world’s leading funds The latest funding data shows that over £600m has been raised by…

TL;DR We know that our industry can be somewhat opaque. We were overwhelmed by the interest in our first Lifting the lid post back in April 2021 so in Part 2 three more members of the team reveal the story behind how they landed their role at Playfair. …

Kuai Commerce has raised $2.4m from Playfair, Haatch Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, Unbundled VC and industry angels for its social commerce solution for brands entering China’s $1.7tn ecommerce market. How it all started Jonny Plein, co-founder of Kuai Commerce, was introduced to me by Joe Bond at PROfounders (thanks Joe 🙏). …

TL;DR Pride is the overwhelming emotion I have at the end of another 12 months. Our founders have achieved incredible things, not least raising over $570m in very challenging markets. Their dedication, perseverance and refusal to accept the popular negative narrative are truly inspiring. #1 Growing the team After an…

This is the eighteenth in our “8 Questions” series — in which we sit down with founders in the Playfair portfolio who share their entrepreneurial journey. We first invested in Nory, an AI driven smart operating system for the hospitality industry, in 2021. Since then, the company has experienced tremendous…