Matt Hershenson
Founding Partner, Co-Founder, and General Partner @ Playground Global
Palo Alto, United States
Matt Hershenson is a Series A investor at Playground Global in Palo Alto focused on Computer and Health Care. Matt Hershenson, a Founding Partner, Co-Founder, and General Partner at Playground Global, knew he was going to be an engineer from an early age. As a teenager, he had an after-school job at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, where his size made him ideal for running cables under the raised floors in labs and machine rooms and abovethe dropped ceilings in the offices. He also learned how to repair and maintain the Computer Science Department’s Xerox Altos.His earliest professional experience was at Apple, where he worked first in manufacturing engineering in Apple’s “Mac Factory” and later worked in the PowerBook group on the design of Apple’s line of PowerBook laptops. In 2000, Matt co-founded Danger, which went on to produce the first consumer smartphone.After creating nine versions of the T-Mobile Sidekick and beginning the process of going public, Danger was purchased by Microsoft. Matt stayed at Microsoft for two years after the acquisition, serving as a Partner in Hardware Engineering.Leveraging his mobile hardware experience, Matt joined Google’s Android team as Director of Hardware. At Google, Matt built the Android hardware team to span all aspects of hardware development - from chip design to regulatory compliance and everything in-between. Matt and his team shipped over 10 generations of devices across phones, tablets, and streaming receivers.In late 2014, Matt joined up with the founding team to start Playground. The idea was to invest in transformative companies with multigenerational impact, while working side-by-side with portfolio companies to help them advance faster than if they were on their own.Today, Matt is still unafraid of technological risk. His reasoning is: if you’re going to go through the trouble, you might as well create something with significance.Matt lives in the Bay Area with his wife of over 20 years and three children.
- Total investments:
- 9
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 56%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Matt Hershenson invests in
Stages Matt Hershenson invests in
Countries Matt Hershenson invests in
Contacts
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Investment Focus
Industry
- Computer 3 (33%)
- Health Care 3 (33%)
- Software 2 (22%)
- Wellness 2 (22%)
- Life Science 2 (22%)
Stage
- Series A 4 (44%)
- Seed 2 (22%)
- Series B 2 (22%)
- Series D 1 (11%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vertical Semiconductor is reinventing power conversion for the current computing infrastructure. | $11M / Seed / Oct 15, 2025 | ||
| Ayar Labs develops a monolithic in-package optical I/O (MIPO) solution for applications that require high bandwidth, low latency, and power-efficient short-reach interconnects.The company disrupts the traditional performance, cost, and efficiency curves of the semiconductor and computing industries by driving improvement in interconnectbandwidth density at lower power. Its patented approach uses industry-standard cost-effective silicon processing techniques to develop high speed, high density, low power optical-based interconnect “chiplets” and lasers to replace traditional electrical-based I/O. Ayar’s flagship product is a chip called TeraPhy that implements its optical technology on compact silicon die. The chip can be integrated directly into a central processing unit, graphics card, or another processor to give it optical data transmission capabilities.The Emeryville, California-headquartered company was established in 2015 by Alex Wright-Gladstein, Vladimir Stojanovic, Chen Sun, and Mark Wade. | $155M / Series D / Dec 11, 2024 | ||
| Outpace Bio is a biotechnology company that creates smart cell therapies aimed at improving efficacy and safety. It offers a platform that combines custom-designed biological functions with cellular control modalities that program the right response at the right time and place. It creates a mechanism-driven solution tailor-made to improve efficacyand safety. The company collaborates with Lyell Immunopharma to develop and commercialize a potential immune cell therapy for the treatment of cancer, auto-immune diseases, infectious diseases, degenerative diseases, regenerative medicine, metabolic disorders, and genetic disorders, enabling healthcare providers to cure a wide range of diseases as per patient's need. | $144M / Series B / Aug 01, 2024 | ||
| Insamo offers the discovery of membrane-permeable & orally available cyclic-peptides which lies in its automated process of designing, synthesizing, and testing at an unprecedented scale. | $12M / Seed / Feb 21, 2024 | ||
| Outpace Bio is a biotechnology company that creates smart cell therapies aimed at improving efficacy and safety. It offers a platform that combines custom-designed biological functions with cellular control modalities that program the right response at the right time and place. It creates a mechanism-driven solution tailor-made to improve efficacyand safety. The company collaborates with Lyell Immunopharma to develop and commercialize a potential immune cell therapy for the treatment of cancer, auto-immune diseases, infectious diseases, degenerative diseases, regenerative medicine, metabolic disorders, and genetic disorders, enabling healthcare providers to cure a wide range of diseases as per patient's need. | $25M / Series A / Mar 23, 2023 | ||
| Ayar Labs develops a monolithic in-package optical I/O (MIPO) solution for applications that require high bandwidth, low latency, and power-efficient short-reach interconnects.The company disrupts the traditional performance, cost, and efficiency curves of the semiconductor and computing industries by driving improvement in interconnectbandwidth density at lower power. Its patented approach uses industry-standard cost-effective silicon processing techniques to develop high speed, high density, low power optical-based interconnect “chiplets” and lasers to replace traditional electrical-based I/O. Ayar’s flagship product is a chip called TeraPhy that implements its optical technology on compact silicon die. The chip can be integrated directly into a central processing unit, graphics card, or another processor to give it optical data transmission capabilities.The Emeryville, California-headquartered company was established in 2015 by Alex Wright-Gladstein, Vladimir Stojanovic, Chen Sun, and Mark Wade. | $35M / Series B / Nov 05, 2020 | ||
| Ayar Labs develops a monolithic in-package optical I/O (MIPO) solution for applications that require high bandwidth, low latency, and power-efficient short-reach interconnects.The company disrupts the traditional performance, cost, and efficiency curves of the semiconductor and computing industries by driving improvement in interconnectbandwidth density at lower power. Its patented approach uses industry-standard cost-effective silicon processing techniques to develop high speed, high density, low power optical-based interconnect “chiplets” and lasers to replace traditional electrical-based I/O. Ayar’s flagship product is a chip called TeraPhy that implements its optical technology on compact silicon die. The chip can be integrated directly into a central processing unit, graphics card, or another processor to give it optical data transmission capabilities.The Emeryville, California-headquartered company was established in 2015 by Alex Wright-Gladstein, Vladimir Stojanovic, Chen Sun, and Mark Wade. | $24M / Series A / Nov 08, 2018 | ||
| Sparta reduces injuries and optimizes performance with validated scientific assessments and evidence-based prescriptions. It is a simple 60-second scan that enables organizations to measure and optimize physical performance and minimize injury risk.Sparta Science optimizes health and performance for athletes, warfighters, fitness clients, andpatients with evidence-based movement scans and data-driven exercise prescriptions that increase resilience, minimize injury risk, and speed efficient rehabilitation to physical activity. Sparta technology is used worldwide by elite and conventional military forces, professional, collegiate, high school, and youth sports organizations, strength training professionals, and medical providers committed to helping people move better, at work, at play, and on duty.The company was founded in 2016 by Phil Wagner and it is based in Menlo Park, California. | $7M / Series A / Jan 17, 2018 | ||
| Sparta Software Corporation offers the Trinsic Human Data Platform and Sparta Science Force Plates to help your organization thrive. | $7M / Series A / Jan 17, 2018 |
Co-Investors
About Playground Global
Playground Global is an early-stage venture capital firm backing technical and scientific founders with deep engineering expertise, a collaborative environment, and a first-hand understanding of the intricacies of deep tech. Established in 2015 and headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Playground’s mission is to transform ambitious ideas into impactfulbusinesses that benefit humanity and the planet. We invest in areas that span across next gen compute automation, energy transition and engineered biology. Playground has been an early – and frequently first investor – in companies that include PsiQuantum, Relativity Space, Ultima Genomics, MosaicML (acq. by Databricks), d-Matrix, and Strand Therapeutics.
Playground Global Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Jeffrey Freburg
VP of Operations and Real Estate and Head of Employee Experience
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Matt Hershenson
Founding Partner, Co-Founder, and General Partner
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Phyllis Whiteley
Venture Partner
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Bruce Leak
Co-Founder, Founding Partner & General Partner
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Greg Wilson
CFO
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FAQ
What does Matt Hershenson invest in?
Matt Hershenson invests primarily in Computer, Health Care and Software startups, most often at Series A and Seed stage. Most of the 9 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Matt Hershenson?
Public channels for Matt Hershenson include LinkedIn 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 Matt Hershenson last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Matt Hershenson closed in Oct 2025. Shizune tracks 9 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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