# Playground Global

> Playground Global is a VC fund in Palo Alto backing Software and Robotics. See 142 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Palo Alto, United States
- Total investments: 142
- Last investment: Jul 2026
- Lead investor: 49%
- Fund size: $410M
- Last fund: Dec 2023
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/playground-global/
- X (Twitter): https://www.twitter.com/playground_VC
- Website: http://playground.global
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlaygroundGlobal-142225329466106/

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.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Playground Global. Shizune tracks 14 team members at Playground Global. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/playground-global?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $2.2M–$20M |
| Series A | $7M–$35M |
| Series B | $23M–$150M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 15 | 11% |
| Robotics | 14 | 10% |
| Biotechnology | 12 | 8% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 12 | 8% |
| Health Care | 11 | 8% |

103 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 43 | 30% |
| Series B | 28 | 20% |
| Seed | 27 | 19% |
| Series C | 11 | 8% |
| Funding Round | 5 | 4% |

9 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 66 | 46% |
| Canada | 2 | 1% |
| Italy | 1 | 1% |
| France | 1 | 1% |
| Israel | 1 | 1% |

8 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Jeffrey Freburg | VP of Operations and Real Estate and Head of Employee Experience | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/jeffrey-freburg |
| Matt Hershenson | Founding Partner, Co-Founder, and General Partner | 9 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/matt-hershenson |
| Phyllis Whiteley | Venture Partner | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/phyllis-whiteley |
| Bruce Leak | Co-Founder, Founding Partner & General Partner | 15 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bruce-leak |
| Greg Wilson | CFO | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/greg-wilson-3c71 |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Prazer Therapeutics | Prazer Therapeutics assists patients suffering from intractable diseases through the use of logical and innovative drug design approaches. They willaccomplished this through the use of new and innovative drug development platforms, such as rational molecular drug design technology and next-generation protein degradation technology. | $33.9M | Venture - Series Unknown | Jul 23, 2026 |  |
| Photon Queue | Photon Queue's focus on efficient all-optical quantum memories is crucial for advancing quantum technology. Photon Queue enhances the performance and scalability of quantum systems. | $4M | Seed | Jul 21, 2026 |  |
| NVision Quantum Technologies | NVision is pioneering a new generation of quantum systems designed to bring quantum computing and quantum sensing out of the lab and into the real world, transforming how diseases are understood, detected, and treated.We engineer and control the quantum properties of organic molecules, integrating molecular design and quantum hardware intoscalable products.Our POLARIS platform uses quantum-based hyperpolarization to enable real-time metabolic MRI with more than 10,000x signal enhancement, supporting non-invasive, early-stage disease detection and treatment monitoring.In 2026, we introduced PIQC (Photonic Integrated Quantum Circuits), a fundamentally new quantum computing architecture that combines molecular qubits with photonic integrated circuits to enable scalable biological modeling and next generation drug discovery.At NVision, we see these technologies converging into a new “compute and validate” paradigm, where quantum systems are used both to design therapies and to measure their biological impact. | $38M | Series B | May 13, 2026 |  |
| Syenta | Enabling the transition to 2.5D and 3D chiplet stacking and increasing the performance of semiconductor chips to meet the growing demand. | $25.9M | Series A | Mar 23, 2026 |  |
| Alva Energy | Alva Energy specializes in nuclear plant upgrades called "uprates" to boost clean power output from existing U.S. reactors. It standardizes complex retrofits into repeatable, turnkey projects for faster and cheaper deployment. | $33M | Series A | Feb 12, 2026 |  |
| PicoJool | PicoJool developed a new class of pixel-level photonics that make optical links inexpensive, compact, and manufacturable. | $12M | Venture - Series Unknown | Nov 18, 2025 |  |
| PowerLattice Technologies | PowerLattice Technologies is a power delivery company that helps improve power delivery for AI accelerators. The company supports AI accelerators with its power delivery chiplet, which integrates power and compute, delivering power where and when it’s needed to achieve performance, efficiency and reliability for AI and data center infrastructure. | $25M | Series A | Nov 17, 2025 |  |
| Sizable energy | Sizable Energy addresses the critical need for secure, affordable, and sustainable energy storage. Sizable Energy patented technology and straightforward design extends pumped hydro deployment to any offshore location with a depth of at least a few hundred meters. By leveraging a novel, modular, and easily deployable method, we utilize thegravitational potential of a solution 20% heavier than seawater, like saturated sea salt brine, within seawater. | $8.8M | Seed | Oct 22, 2025 |  |
| Vertical Semiconductor | Vertical Semiconductor is reinventing power conversion for the current computing infrastructure. | $11M | Seed | Oct 15, 2025 |  |
| GAIM.FUN | GAIM.FUN turn a single sentence into an explorale, fully interactive 3D environment, |  | Seed | Oct 06, 2025 |  |

10 of 142 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [AME Cloud Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ame-cloud-ventures) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [Civilization Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/civilization-ventures) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [DCVC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/data-collective) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [M12 - Microsoft's Venture Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/m12) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [M12 - Microsoft's Venture Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/microsoftventures) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [Schematic Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/schematic-ventures) — VC Fund, 6 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does Playground Global invest in?

Playground Global invests primarily in Software, Robotics and Biotechnology startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 142 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 Playground Global's check size?

Playground Global typically joins rounds of $2.2M–$20M at Seed, $7M–$35M at Series A and $23M–$150M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Playground Global participates in.

### How do I contact Playground Global?

Public channels for Playground Global 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 Playground Global?

The team at Playground Global includes Jeffrey Freburg (VP of Operations and Real Estate and Head of Employee Experience), Matt Hershenson (Founding Partner, Co-Founder, and General Partner) and Phyllis Whiteley (Venture Partner), among 14 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.

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