Chris Smith
Managing Partner @ Playfair Capital
London, United Kingdom
Chris Smith is a seed investor at Playfair Capital in London focused on Artificial Intelligence and Software. Chris is Managing Partner at Playfair, a Kauffman Fellow (Class 25), a Contributor to Forbes and helped found our D&I initiative - Female Founder Office Hours (FFOH) - in 2019.He focuses his investing activities on pre-seed opportunities in the UK and Europe. Chris is particularly interested in robotics, autonomous transportation, businessand industrial automation (especially through AI, ML and computer vision), HealthTech (except diagnostics and therapeutics) and B2B SaaS. He loves finding companies operating in unloved/overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption.Prior to joining Playfair, Chris was an operator at plan.com where he held senior roles including Sales Director, Head of Tech/BI and Head of Product Development. He was the 8th member of the team and over a 5 year period built an award winning sales team, introduced new products (organically and through acquisition) and led the roll out of version 4 of the platform. Revenues grew to £60m in 2018 and the company ranked #1 in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100.In addition to his roles at plan.com, Chris worked on the re-launch/re-branding of Vannin Capital (another Bramden Investments' portfolio company which was acquired by Fortress Investment Group LLC in September 2019).Chris executed 15 angel investments across the UK and US from 2008 to 2018 with six exits to date including SuperAwesome (acq. Epic Games), Nearbuy Systems (acq. RetailNext), Compology (acq. RoadRunner Recycling) & Bidstack (LON:BIDS). He is passionate about investing in tech companies and supporting founders using his extensive operational and legal experience.In his previous life, Chris spent nearly a decade in the City as a transactional lawyer. He has worked with some of the world’s leading private equity and venture capital funds on predominantly international acquisitions, disposals and restructurings. At Weil, he spent time on secondment to the Silicon Valley office’s patent litigation team, UK-based food manufacturer Premier Foods and the Asset Protection Agency.He was also the founder of a telecoms business in 2001 offering discounted international calling from 14 countries which he partially exited via an MBO in 2005.
- Total investments:
- 31
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 35%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Chris Smith invests in
Stages Chris Smith invests in
Countries Chris Smith invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
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Investment Focus
Industry
- Artificial Intelligence 10 (32%)
- Software 7 (23%)
- Machine Learning 5 (16%)
- Health Care 4 (13%)
- Computer Vision 3 (10%)
Stage
- Seed 10 (32%)
- Series A 10 (32%)
- Pre-Seed 6 (19%)
- Series B 1 (3%)
- Funding Round 1 (3%)
Country
- United Kingdom 10 (32%)
- Israel 2 (6%)
- Ireland 2 (6%)
- Japan 1 (3%)
- Switzerland 1 (3%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otel AI acts as an AI-powered teammate for hotel leaders, streamlining back-office tasks and turning complex data into clear, actionable business insights. | $2.4M / Seed / Apr 15, 2026 | ||
| Kuai Commerce is a social commerce solutions for brand acceleration. | $11.1M / Series A / Sep 21, 2025 | ||
| Founded in 2018 by a team of Navy veterans, Orca AI, a maritime tech startup, empowers shipping companies to enhance their operational safety, efficiency, and sustainability through a single AI and computer-vision-based operations platform. By October 2024, 900 vessels have been booked, and 550 installations have already been completed. Theplatform is trusted by key industry players across various shipping segments, including MSC, Seaspan, Maran Tankers / Angelicoussis Group, NYK, and Marubeni. The company has raised a total of $38 million in funding over two rounds from US, UK, and Israeli VCs and employs 80 people across its offices in London, Athens, Singapore, and Tel Aviv. | $23M / Venture - Series Unknown / May 23, 2024 | ||
| Nory is the all-knowing restaurant management system that learns the behind the scenes of your business. Helping you forecast sales, plan labour & optimise your inventory. | $15.9M / Series A / May 22, 2024 | ||
| Qureight is an imaging analytics company. It also aims to develop a new improved and streamlined version of its analytical platform – harnessing the ability of AI and advanced processing tools to gain new insights into respiratory diseases such as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and lung cancer. | $8.5M / Series A / Apr 16, 2024 | ||
| Continuum Industries enables power, utility, and renewables companies to instantly visualize, analyze, and assess routing options for power lines, cables, and pipelines. They are the providers of enterprise software for infrastructure planning. They also provide solutions for electricity transmission, renewable energy developers, and hydrogennetworks. | $9.8M / Series A / Sep 25, 2023 | ||
| Ascento Robotics' vision is to advance the development of wheeled bipedal robotic systems, taking them from the lab to the real world. Their solution combines the best of both worlds: it uses the versatility of legs to overcome stairs and obstacles, while its wheels provide quick, energy- and cost-efficient locomotion. As a result, ourplatform is ideal for real-world deployment of mobile robots in a variety of applications. | $4.3M / Pre-Seed / Sep 12, 2023 | ||
| uMed is a technology platform embedded across a global network of healthcare providers that automates the process of building prospective, protocolized patient registries. This enables sites to participate in dozens of programmes simultaneously without increasing overhead or burden on staff. For life science companies, uMed provides access toregulator quality data, where patients within those datasets can be compliantly re-engaged to support the aims of R&D and post-market teams | $12.8M / Series A / Jul 05, 2023 | ||
| Material Evolution uses patented geopolymer technology and proprietary algorithms to create the most sustainable materials on the planet.Material Evolution’s first product is a cement mix made from 95% waste using its algorithm technology. Its smart concrete mix is 10X stronger, 5X more durable, and reduces carbon consumption by 85%. Mostimportantly, it’s economically viable for construction companies. | $18.9M / Series A / Jun 29, 2023 | ||
| Nory is the all-knowing restaurant management system that learns the behind the scenes of your business. Helping you forecast sales, plan labour & optimise your inventory. | $7.6M / Seed / May 17, 2023 | ||
| See all 31 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Playfair Capital
Playfair is a generalist fund focused exclusively on pre-seed investments. Based in London, Playfair invests across the UK and Europe with a deliberately high-conviction, low-volume approach: six investments per year from its third $70 million fund, with dedicated time, capital, and resources committed to supporting companies post-investment. Its 78% Series A progression rate is approximately four times the industry average, and its founders have raised more than $3 billion in follow-on capital since 2013. Playfair has backed more than 100 companies, including Thought Machine, Orca AI, Protex AI, StackOne, and Nory.
Playfair Capital Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Andrew Sheffield
Associate
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Chris Smith
Managing Partner
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Clare Zhang
Analyst
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Federico Pirzio-Biroli
Founder & Chairman
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Henrik Wetter Sanchez
General Partner
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FAQ
What does Chris Smith invest in?
Chris Smith invests primarily in Artificial Intelligence, Software and Machine Learning startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 31 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United Kingdom. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Chris Smith?
Public channels for Chris Smith include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Chris Smith last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Chris Smith closed in Apr 2026. Shizune tracks 31 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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