# Play Ventures

> Play Ventures is a VC fund in Grand Cayman backing Gaming and Video Games. See 141 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
- Total investments: 141
- Last investment: Jul 2026
- Lead investor: 41%
- Last fund: Aug 2023
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/playventures/
- Website: http://www.playventures.vc/

Play Ventures is a venture funding that invests globally in games and game services startups.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Play Ventures. Shizune tracks 6 team members at Play Ventures. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/play-ventures?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.5M–$9.9M |
| Pre-Seed | $700k–$3.5M |
| Series A | $6.1M–$26M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Gaming | 43 | 30% |
| Video Games | 17 | 12% |
| Software | 14 | 10% |
| Blockchain | 14 | 10% |
| Online Games | 12 | 9% |

74 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 62 | 44% |
| Pre-Seed | 15 | 11% |
| Series A | 14 | 10% |
| Funding Round | 14 | 10% |
| Series B | 3 | 2% |

8 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 24 | 17% |
| Finland | 12 | 9% |
| United Kingdom | 7 | 5% |
| Turkey | 4 | 3% |
| India | 3 | 2% |

19 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Anton Backman | Investment Associate | 6 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anton-backman |
| Elad Levy | Limited Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/elad-levy-fec7 |
| Harri Manninen | Founding Partner | 32 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/harri-manninen |
| Henric Suuronen | Founding Partner | 15 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/henric-suuronen |
| Michail Katkoff | Venture Partner | 2 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/michail-katkoff |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| geoSurge | geoSurge provides an AI platform that helps organizations understand and improve how they are represented in large language models and AI-powered search systems. The company measures how AI models recall, describe, and prioritize brands across different prompts, model versions, and engines, enabling users to monitor changes in AI visibility overtime. Its platform includes tools for tracking brand mentions, competitor comparisons, visibility trends, and AI-generated sources, while also supporting corpus engineering to strengthen how structured information is understood by AI models. geoSurge applies data science, engineering, and research to analyze model behavior, identify gaps in brand representation, and help organizations improve the accuracy and consistency of AI-generated responses. | $12M | Seed | Jul 03, 2026 |  |
| PvX Partners | PvX Partners is a platform designed to help consumer apps scale. PvX Capital is our first line of services focused on cohort financing: fast, flexible capital without the risk and drawbacks of traditional equity or debt. PvX Capital enables you to scale marketing spends meaningfully without the worry of equity dilution or loan defaults. PvX is alsodeveloping an operating system for growth — a unified platform enabling incremental ROAS. A single integration that will grant you access to the industry’s most useful tools proven to help consumer businesses scale. | $10.5M | Series A | Apr 23, 2026 |  |
| Uplane | Uplane is an AI-powered marketing platform that automates ad creation, campaign management, and performance tracking. | $4.5M | Seed | Apr 16, 2026 |  |
| StoReel | StoReel is a unique platform that brings captivating short dramas. | $9M | Seed | Mar 26, 2026 |  |
| Vuelo | Vuelo is redefining how the world plans, books and pays for travel, elevating journeys into richer experiences | $8.7M | Seed | Mar 25, 2026 |  |
| Cheer Games | Cheer Games is a mobile gaming studio creating casual puzzle games with fresh gameplay. | $4.5M | Pre-Seed | Mar 05, 2026 |  |
| Midnite | Building the future of esports betting | $35M | Series C | Jan 15, 2026 |  |
| PvX Partners | PvX Partners is a platform designed to help consumer apps scale. PvX Capital is our first line of services focused on cohort financing: fast, flexible capital without the risk and drawbacks of traditional equity or debt. PvX Capital enables you to scale marketing spends meaningfully without the worry of equity dilution or loan defaults. PvX is alsodeveloping an operating system for growth — a unified platform enabling incremental ROAS. A single integration that will grant you access to the industry’s most useful tools proven to help consumer businesses scale. | $4.7M | Seed | Dec 05, 2025 |  |
| Cypher Games | Cypher Games is a mobile gaming company that develops casual games for users and players. The company focuses on the next generation mobile puzzle games. It aims to shape the future of mobile gaming together with its colleagues, investors, and thought partners. | $30M | Series A | Oct 01, 2025 |  |
| Appcharge | Appcharge offers a platform that enables mobile game publishers to sell virtual items directly to their players. It facilitates the creation of branded web stores, supports global payment processing, and enables gamified promotional experiences. The platform includes tools such as customizable subscription plans and trials, secure and localizedcheckout flows, iOS payment links, and game portals for exclusive player content. Appcharge also supports alternative distribution models like Android sideloading and provides publisher-facing tools for A/B testing, analytics, and offer segmentation via dashboard and APIs. | $58M | Series B | Aug 13, 2025 |  |

10 of 141 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Animoca Brands](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/animoca-brands-corporation) — VC Fund, 16 deals together
- [Makers Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/makers-fund) — VC Fund, 11 deals together
- [BITKRAFT Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bitkraft-ventures) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [DeFiance Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/defiance-capital-96c1) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Andreessen Horowitz](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andreessen-horowitz) — VC Fund, 7 deals together

## Similar investors

### Similar industry
- [SOSV](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sosv) — VC Fund
- [Animoca Brands](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/animoca-brands-corporation) — VC Fund
- [BITKRAFT Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bitkraft-ventures) — VC Fund

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

### Similar country
- [Business Finland](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tekes) — VC Fund
- [Lifeline Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/lifeline-ventures) — VC Fund
- [Tesi](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tesi) — VC Fund

## Featured in investor lists
- [Gaming Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/gaming-investors)
- [Gaming VC Funds](https://shizune.co/investors/gaming-vc-funds)
- [Video Games Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/video-games-investors)
- [Video Games VC Funds](https://shizune.co/investors/video-games-vc-funds)
- [Gaming Investors in Europe](https://shizune.co/investors/gaming-investors-europe)
- [Gaming VC Funds in Europe](https://shizune.co/investors/gaming-vc-funds-europe)

## FAQ

### What does Play Ventures invest in?

Play Ventures invests primarily in Gaming, Video Games and Software startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 141 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Play Ventures's check size?

Play Ventures typically joins rounds of $1.5M–$9.9M at Seed, $700k–$3.5M at Pre-Seed and $6.1M–$26M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Play Ventures participates in.

### How do I contact Play Ventures?

Public channels for Play Ventures 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.

### Who are the partners at Play Ventures?

The team at Play Ventures includes Anton Backman (Investment Associate), Elad Levy (Limited Partner) and Harri Manninen (Founding Partner), among 6 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### 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 Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co