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 companies that have attended one of the previous editions — an increase of £120m from the previous year Since October 2019, Playfair Capital’s office hours has delivered over 6,700 mentoring sessions for women founders across Europe London 8 March 2023: On Thursday 20th April, 20 ..read more

Sourcerie has raised a £1.8m pre-seed round, from Playfair, Vorverk Ventures and strategic angels to build the tech platform and personalisation software for consumers’ skincare, haircare, and bodycare needs How it started I’ve been a skincare nerd since being diagnosed with adult acne at the age of 21. After seeing a dermatologist, I felt lost and confused navigating an industry full of jargon, pretty packaging and intense marketing campaigns. It’s a space that I’ve always felt, as a consumer, needed revolutionising…. And then we heard of Kristin Cardwell and Alex Beyer through our ..read more

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. We hope it will be helpful for anybody looking for a career in VC. Warning: this is a long post so grab a ☕ or ? and settle in Sheff (Associate) Until I reached 18, I wanted to be a professional football referee. In fact, I was totally unaware of technology, startups and the world of Venture Capital. I spent my weekends on pitches acro ..read more

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 James, Adam & Jonny Jonny Plein, co-founder of Kuai Commerce, was introduced to me by Joe Bond at PROfounders (thanks Joe ?). Joe had mentioned to Henrik that he was investing in Kuai personally and thought we should take a look. Henrik identified the company as one I’d be interested in and made the connection. After the first call with Jonny, I felt that un ..read more

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 intensive hiring process that saw over 1,000 applications, we welcomed Clare and João to the team last month. We’re delighted they chose to join us and are excited to see them flourish ? #2 Seeing the team thrive We work hard to make Playfair a supportive culture wh ..read more

This is the sixteenth in our “8 Questions” series — in which we sit down with founders in the Playfair portfolio who share their entrepreneurial journey. Ian Forde-Smith (CTO), George Richardson (CEO) & Paul Secker (Head of Passenger Processing Solutions) We first invested in AeroCloud, a software management platform for airport operations, in 2020. Since then, the company has experienced tremendous growth, winning airport customers across the US and Europe, and recently acquiring Flight Solutions to enhance their product offering. Today, we sit down with co-founder and CEO, George Richard ..read more

Protex AI has raised $18m from Notion, Playfair, Firstminute, Elkstone and Y Combinator to empower health and safety teams and protect workers with AI-powered technology. How it all started Dan Hobbs and Ciarán O’Mara, CEO and CTO of Protex AI, approached us via our website’s open pitch form in April 2021 and were also connected by our former analyst Jeremy Luzinda (thanks Jez!). As an investor, I take a dozen pitches every week (~600 every year), and it is extremely rare that I leave that first call with an unequivocal feeling that I have to be part of this company’s journey, whate ..read more

This is the fourteenth 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 Tray.io, the global leader in low-code automation, in 2015. Since then, the company has experienced incredible growth, winning numerous Fortune 500 companies as users, and closing a $50m Series C in late 2019 which valued the company at more than $600m. Today, we sit down with founder and Chief Executive Officer, Rich Waldron, to hear his story from the beginnings of Tray.io. We hope this can help other founders an ..read more

This is the thirteenth 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 Sprout.ai, AI powered claims automation for insurers, in 2018. Since then, the company has experienced rapid growth, winning big name global insurers as clients, and closing an $11m Series A led by Octopus Ventures. They also took desk space in Warner Yard so we get to say hi ? Today, we sit down with founder and Chief Growth Officer, Niels Thone, to hear his story from the beginnings of Sprout.ai. We hope this can ..read more

This is the eleventh in our “8 Questions” series — in which we sit down with founders in the Playfair portfolio who share their entrepreneurial journey. Co-founders Dor Raviv (left) and Yarden Gross (right) We first invested in Orca.ai, a computer vision startup improving cargo ship navigation and collision avoidance, in 2019. Yarden Gross had just left his first company Engie and Dor Raviv had moved on from technical roles at Cortica and the Israeli Navy. Driven by their vision of revolutionising shipping, Yarden and Dor built a combined-AI, deep learning and hardware solution which they ..read more