Playfair Capital
VC Fund
London, United Kingdom
Playfair Capital is a VC fund in London focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. 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.
- Total investments:
- 156
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 24%
- Fund size:
- $70M
- Last fund:
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Playfair Capital invests in
Stages Playfair Capital invests in
Countries Playfair Capital invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| See all 9 contacts → | |||
Round size
- Seed
- $1.2M–$7.6M
- Pre-Seed
- $953k–$3.7M
- Series A
- $3M–$19M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 33 (21%)
- Artificial Intelligence 27 (17%)
- Machine Learning 13 (8%)
- Information Technology 13 (8%)
- E-Commerce 10 (6%)
Stage
- Seed 62 (40%)
- Series A 33 (21%)
- Pre-Seed 26 (17%)
- Series B 9 (6%)
- Venture - Series Unknown 8 (5%)
Country
- United Kingdom 58 (37%)
- United States 17 (11%)
- Switzerland 6 (4%)
- Germany 3 (2%)
- France 2 (1%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Andrew Sheffield
Associate
|
Associate | Total investments: 4 | Find email | |
Chris Smith
Managing Partner
|
Managing Partner | Total investments: 31 | Find email | |
Clare Zhang
Analyst
|
Analyst | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Federico Pirzio-Biroli
Founder & Chairman
|
Founder & Chairman | Total investments: 11 | Find email | |
Henrik Wetter Sanchez
General Partner
|
General Partner | Total investments: 19 | Find email | |
| See all 9 team members → | ||||
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Affinity Labs is a creator-led software startup studio using AI to build, launch, and grow software brands around influencers. | $2M / Pre-Seed / Oct 14, 2026 | ||
| Fusionality is a Swiss fusion-technology company focused on measurement, control, and data systems for fusion devices.They combine expertise in fusion physics, control engineering, AI/ML, simulation, diagnostics, and real-time software.Their goal is to help fusion companies and research labs operate devices more efficiently and accelerate thedevelopment of commercial fusion energy. | $3.7M / Pre-Seed / Sep 08, 2026 | ||
| Navifare is an AI-powered travel price optimization and metasearch platform that focuses on flight, hotel, and car rental price comparison. The platform analyzes flight offers users already found and searches for lower fares from online travel agencies and airlines. Users can upload screenshots, paste flight details, or use a Chrome extension thatoverlays a “Find Better Fare” button on major booking sites. Navifare exposes its price discovery capabilities via a web app, a REST API, and an MCP server for integration into AI assistants. It redirects users to partner sites to complete bookings and does not handle payments directly. | $1.9M / Pre-Seed / Aug 11, 2026 | ||
| Zerolook provides a flight-shopping API for online travel agencies, airlines, metasearch services, and AI travel applications. Its machine-learning model predicts flight prices and itineraries using historical fare data instead of recomputing every fare combination through a global distribution system or airline system. The API returns predicteditineraries, prices, and confidence scores for exploratory search, while customers route completed bookings through their existing distribution channels. Zerolook supports REST and MCP integrations and provides booking links to external airlines and online travel agencies. | $1.8M / Pre-Seed / Aug 11, 2026 | ||
| Exclaim Robotics focuses on jobs that need dexterity and precision, such as cable bundles that were not designed with a robot in mind, optics that flex if forced, and drives that must fit absolutely squarely. | $5M / Pre-Seed / Aug 04, 2026 | ||
| Astral Systems is a pioneering transformative fusion technology to address real global health and energy challenges.Our mission is to provide innovative, cutting edge fusion technology that enhance access to critical medical isotopes, accelerate fusion research, and lay the groundwork for sustainable energy systems. | $30.4M / Series A / Jun 23, 2026 | ||
| Wassist is a platform for building AI-powered WhatsApp agents that help businesses automate sales, customer support, and marketing directly inside WhatsApp. | $1.1M / Pre-Seed / Jun 08, 2026 | ||
| Turning audible sound into health insights using AI | $2M / Pre-Seed / Apr 30, 2026 | ||
| Eccasion operates as an online marketplace that specializes in ex‑lease electric vehicles, sourcing them from closed trade auctions on behalf of customers. | $3.7M / Seed / Apr 23, 2026 | ||
| 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 | ||
| See all 156 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Playfair Capital invest in?
Playfair Capital invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 156 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United Kingdom. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does Playfair Capital invest in?
Playfair Capital typically joins rounds of $1.2M–$7.6M at Seed, $953k–$3.7M at Pre-Seed and $3M–$19M at Series A. These are whole funding-round sizes, not Playfair Capital's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds Playfair Capital took part in.
How do I contact Playfair Capital?
Public channels for Playfair Capital 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.
Who are the partners at Playfair Capital?
The team at Playfair Capital includes Andrew Sheffield (Associate), Chris Smith (Managing Partner) and Clare Zhang (Analyst), among 9 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 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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