We play fair by founders
Giving you an unfair advantage, to take you from where you are to where you want to be
Giving you an unfair advantage, to take you from where you are to where you want to be
92% of our portfolio recommend working with us
About
73% of our companies have successfully raised a Series A
Portfolio
Because we know it takes more than funding for a startup to survive and thrive; the right support goes beyond writing cheques
Approach
It’s a step towards the tomorrow we all want to live in
Content
Collaboration is Queen: Our female founder network has collectively raised £600m
FFOH
Our growing angel community is open to active angel investors in Europe
Angels
It’s never too early for an initial conversation
Pitch us
We’re based in London but we actively invest in startups across the UK and Europe.
We like to be the first institutional investor in a company, so you’ll be a good fit for us if you’ve not previously raised or only raised a small (£1m max) friends and family or angel round previously. Unfortunately, if you’ve raised more than £1m, you’re too late for us, and we missed out.
Our average ticket is £700k, but we have the ability to go as low as £100k and as high as £1.5m for the right opportunity.
We have an intentionally high-conviction, low-volume approach to pre-seed investing. We make 6-8 investments a year and preserve capital, time and resource to be hands on post-investment.
We are open to investing across all sectors and verticals, as long as there is a technology element. We can get excited about (almost) anything! There is very short list of things we don’t invest in here
In order to add value and be hands on post-investment, we typically lead or co-lead rounds. We have previously co-led with the likes of Ascension, Amadeus, Cavalry, Episode 1, Firstminute, IQ Capital, MMC, Seedcamp and Vorwerk.
We’re based in London but we actively invest in startups across the UK, Europe and Israel.
We like to be the first institutional investor in a company, so you’ll be a good fit for us if you haven't previously raised or only raised a small (£1m max) friends and family or angel round. Unfortunately, if you’ve raised more than £1m, you’re too late for us, and we missed out.
Our average ticket is £100k - £1.5m, with our sweetspot being £700k.
We have an intentionally high-conviction, low-volume approach to pre-seed investing. We make 6-8 investments a year and preserve capital, time and resource to be hands on post-investment.
We have invested across all sectors and verticals, as long as there is a technology element. We can get excited about (almost) anything!
In order to add value and be hands on post-investment, we typically lead or co-lead rounds. We have previously co-led with the likes of IQ Capital, Ascension, Amadeus, Episode 1, MMC, Cavalry and Vorwerk.
73
73% of our companies successfully raise Series A
Pre-seed defined as round
< £1.5m
Seed defined as £1.5 - £6m
Series A £6m+
Company is not included in next round metrics if most recent round was within 18 months
3
3 Unicorns
7
7
exits
1/3
1/3 companies have a woman founder
92
92% of portfolio companies recommend investment from Playfair
100
100%
We have done prorata in 100% of our fund II companies
We have an intentionally high conviction, low-volume approach: making 6-8 investments a year and preserving time, capital and resource to help our companies post-investment. Because once we’ve made a decision, we fiercely commit and follow through, tailoring our support to our founders and their teams, as individuals, not assets. We think it’s a lot more fun this way.
Whether it’s shaping strategy, solving problems or simply lending an ear when times get tough - we plan on being there throughout the journey, with the highs, lows and all the in-betweens.
We recognise that succeeding on this scale means beating the odds, especially in the early days, when every decision is pivotal and the pressure is on. So we’ve built a team and a fund that gives you an unfair advantage….
Everything from ring-fencing follow-on capital for subsequent rounds, and connecting you to our founder and wider network, to specific support on sales/ GTM, hiring, financials & marketing. Doing everything we can to be effective board participants, mentors and advisors. We believe it’s the only way to ensure long-term alignment over the 5, 10 or even more years that we’ll be on the journey together.
George Richardson, CEO, Aerocloud
Max Buchan, CEO, Worldr
Elizabeth Gilligan, CEO, MaterialEvolution
We’ve made it simple, fair and transparent for founders to get in front of us. When you’re ready, head to the Pitch us section of our website and fill in your application - it’s open to anyone and everyone!
Our investment team looks through each and every application and will get back to you within five days of a submission. We promise to always get back to you.
Read more about our inbound process here.
From books to blogs, there's an array of resources available to help founders prepare for fundraising.
We would specifically suggest thinking about:
A stand-out pitch deck. You have one opportunity to capture the interest of the investor so keep it short and sweet. The aim is to excite the investor enough to bag a 30 minute initial meeting. Have a read about what to include within your pitch deck here.
A Data Room. We suggest setting up a Data Room in advance of the process, which includes your financial model, market sizing, research papers and anything else that may be useful to the investor. This saves you time during the process as you can easily direct the investor to this repository of information.
We’re very used to and comfortable investing in pre-revenue, and sometimes even pre-product, companies. As pre-seed investors, we understand you’re early in your journey and we’re not expecting you to have everything figured out. But this is the really exciting bit for us: we like to talk vision and the future, as well as getting into the nitty gritty such as:
Most importantly, we want to get (almost) as excited about your company as you are. So get us excited...
It’s never too early for a conversation! We typically like to be the first institutional investor, during the pre-seed stage.
We ring-fence funds to follow into subsequent rounds. So far, we have followed into 100% of our fund II companies subsequent rounds.
As a generalist fund, our portfolio spans fintech (ThoughtMachine), future of work (Omnipresent), computer vision (Recycleye & Orca AI), healthtech (uMed), cybersecurity (Ravelin) and even cement (Material Evolution).
We love looking at diverse markets and are always on the lookout for new trends.
Here is a short list of sectors that we do not look at:
We’re based and focused on the UK but invest across Europe.
The aim of our process is for to start building a relationship from day one; we’re looking for chemistry, aligned goals and values.
Our typical investment process looks a little like this:
1. Introduction call
A 30 minute introduction can be an informal chat or a formal pitch meeting - whichever you’re most comfortable with. The aim is to find out more about you, your story, why you founded the company and then to fill in any gaps from the deck. It also gives you the opportunity to ask questions about Playfair and the process, and learn more about us!
2. Subsequent meetings with the wider team
In each meeting, we'll introduce a new team member so you get a well-rounded insight to the different backgrounds, skills and experiences on our team. Each investor has their own style and area of interest, but we will always catch up as a team in between meetings to debrief and sync.
3. Due diligence
Once we are serious about the opportunity for Playfair to work with you, we’ll start our investment memo which includes everything from market sizing, financial analysis, technical deep dives and reference calls. We like to go deep in our diligence to build depth in our conviction.
4. Investment committee
Our entire team is invited to the IC and everyone has an equal right to contribute - this leads to lively debates and better decisions.
It involves the Playfair team coming together and consolidating our findings. It it’s a positive outcome. Sometimes the news isn't what founders want to hear. If this is the case, we’ll provide as much feedback as possible so that you're better prepared for future fundraising conversations and can take some value from our investment process.
You can read more about our investment process here.
The total timeline can vary from days to weeks. However we can move as fast as founders require us to. We know it can be a stressful time for founders, so we will make sure we keep you up to date throughout the process so you always know what to expect next!
We recognise the incredible potential for entrepreneurs to improve society, but this will not be fully realised until we achieve real equality in access to startup funding.
There is still so much work that needs to be done. And so, we’re committed to making our portfolio, team and ecosystem as diverse and inclusive as possible.
Since 2019, we have actively supported female founders in gaining access to investors and improving their fundraising opportunities through our Europe-wide Female Founder Office Hours event. You can read more about them here.
That's great - we're always on the lookout for exceptional talent! You can discover job opportunities at our portfolio companies on our careers page. If you don't see a role suited to you, make sure you register to join our Talent Network to be updated when your ideal role becomes available.
