Ten highlights from 2023
TL;DR It’s been a tough year. Nothing has been easy. It’s taken a lot more effort to maintain momentum. Yet against the backdrop of a difficult funding environment and macro malaise, our founders have achieved numerous successful rounds and strong business performance. I am both proud of and grateful for their hard work, dedication and perseverance.
#1 Closing a new fund
We announced our third, $70m fund at the end of March together with a new brand identity that better reflects the way we think venture should be done — playing fair by founders.
This was the culmination of many months of hard work by the entire team, not least Henrik Wetter Sanchez, who drove much of the strategic work and Jeevan Sunner, who successfully captured what makes Playfair different in our brand refresh 🙏
#2 Closing follow-on rounds
In the most challenging funding environment for years, our founders did an incredible job closing 14 follow-on rounds (12 announced) worth more than $180m 💪
This year we were delighted to participate in the following rounds:
Aerocloud in their $12.6m Series A led by Stage 2 Capital with participation from Triple Point Ventures, I2BF Global Ventures, Praetura Ventures, Haatch and Starburst Ventures (TechCrunch).
Continuum Industries in their $10m Series A led by Singular with participation from Credo, Techstart Ventures and angels (tech.eu).
Koala in a €2m round of founding led by Insurtech Gateway with participation from Uneti Ventures, Slimmer AI and Sterling Oak (Silicon Canals).
Material Evolution in their $19m Series A led by Kompas VC with participation from Norrsken VC, Circle Rock and SigmaRoc (TechCrunch).
Nory in a €7m round of founding led by Triple Point Ventures and Samaipata VC with participation from Cavalry and Circle Rock (Tech.eu).
Recycleye in their $17m Series A led by DCVC with participation from Promus Ventures, MMC Ventures, Creator Fund, Atypical and Seaya Andromeda (Tech.eu).
Spotted Zebra in their £7.7m Series A led by Nauta Capital with participation from Act VC and Entrepreneur First (UKTN).
Sprout.ai in a £5.4m round of founding led by Amadeus Capital Partners and Praetura with participation from Octopus Ventures, Techstars and Forefront Venture Partners (UKTN).
uMed in their £10m Series A led by Delin Ventures with participation from AlbionVC and 11.2 Capital (Sky News).
And celebrate a number of later stage rounds being closed:
OneDay’s $6.2m Series A led by Ananda Impact Ventures with participation from Brighteye Ventures, Outward VC, Flint Capital and Sparkmind.vc (FinSMEs).
Sabi’s $38m Series B led by CommerzVentures and CRE Ventures (TechCrunch).
Seldon’s $20m Series B led by Bright Pixel with participation from AlbionVC, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Amadeus Capital Partners (TechCrunch).
#3 Closing new investments
We were active deploying capital into new investments across Europe this year and closed five rounds (vs three last year) and announced two.
Closed
Ascento’s $4.3m round co-led with Wingman Ventures alongside angels (Why we invested | TechCrunch).
Fenka’s €1.2m round alongside angels.
Trezy’s €3m round co-led with Seedcamp alongside Kima Ventures, Discovery Ventures and angels (Why we invested | Tech.eu)
Unannounced £3m round co-led with another VC and angels in the UK.
Unannounced €500k round alongside angels in Germany.
Announced
Spotted Zebra’s $1.8m round alongside Entrepreneur First (EU-Startups).
Yaso’s £2m round alongside Haatch Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, Unbundled VC and angels (Why we invested | UKTN).
#4 Seeing the team thrive
Henrik became a partner having joined us in February 2019 as an associate and wrote this must read blog post — A path to Partner in VC: what I wish I’d known.
We celebrated several other milestones including:
- Sheff leading his first investment 👏
- Clare & João’s first Playfairversary 🎂
- Welcoming Anouska, Deanne and Raxita to the team 🤝
We said goodbye to Jeevs — who left to get married and travel in South America — and Joe who didn’t go far at all in his role working directly for Fede. We’re hugely grateful to them both for everything they did for us 🙏
#5 Founders’ Dinners & more
Despite it being a very busy year, we had some great experiences with our founders, including at Wimbledon.
Our bi-annual Founders’ Dinner was held in London and more than ever felt like a safe space for sharing ideas, battle scars and getting some free founder-to-founder therapy 😍
#6 FFOH Edition 9 & 10
FFOH held a milestone 10th edition.
Since 2019, the initiative has brought together 1,900 founders for 7,800 one-to-one mentoring sessions and pitch meetings with over 180 investors.
Founders participating in the event have raised £1.2bn.
#7 FFOH x Slush II
Our second attendance at Slush received some wonderful feedback from founders and investors.
We’re excited this is now part of the annual FFOH calendar alongside the two virtual events in the spring and autumn.
#8 Launched Our Angel Community
We launched the Playfair Angel Community and held our first AMA and social at our office.
You can find out more about the community and its aims here and here.
#9 Founder recognition
We were happy to rank in the inaugural Founder’s Choice VC Leaderboard:
And maintain our 4.5* rating on Landscape whilst passing 100 reviews.
#10 Our 10th birthday
Institutionalising Playfair and becoming a long-standing firm in European venture has been one of my key ambitions since joining a little over 5 years ago.
Celebrating our 10th birthday alongside our founder, Fede, was a great milestone on that journey.
I don’t have enough words for my team. I’ll just say that I feel incredibly lucky to work with all of them. And thank you — what an epic year!
