Playfair Capital is an early-stage fund that invests in ambitious founders across various sectors.
The oversubscribed round was led by Playfair Capital with backing from multiple institutional investors and angel backers.
"James and Hector have been really engaged since I appeared on the podcast and it made sense to invite them into what was a highly competitive round due to their network, experience and willingness to help and support."
DCVC led the Series A round to support the scale up of artificial intelligence waste sorting systems.
"At FCC, we believe in being forward-thinking, so investing in the latest waste sorting technology was an obvious choice. Recycleye Robotics is delivering the consistent purity in sorted material and reliable data that we need to run an effective facility"
Playfair Capital led the pre-seed round to fund the launch of the social commerce solution and team expansion.
"The Chinese ecommerce market is an extremely enticing one for Western brands, but the challenges of doing business there are nontrivial. Many brands never get started in China, whilst others receive piecemeal, misaligned and substandard service from a hotchpotch of uncoordinated service providers. Kuai’s tech first, full stack approach, combined with the incredibly deep and rich market experience of the team accumulated over many years, is a compelling proposition for any brand wanting to build a successful long-term business in China. We’re incredibly excited to be working with the team on this journey."
The seed round was led by Molten Ventures with participation from several specialist funds and angel investors.
"Data sovereignty has never been more important. The increase in cyberattacks, data localisation requirements, and scrutiny from regulators mean that it is no longer enough to blindly trust that collaboration platforms are keeping business communications secure and compliant. Companies rightfully want control of their data to protect themselves against operational, reputational and regulatory risk. This has not only fuelled demand for our zero trust architecture for Microsoft Teams, but we are also being challenged to apply this solution across an organisation’s entire software environment. This funding will be critical to helping us further this mission and scale to meet the demand."
The oversubscribed seed round was co-led by firstminute Capital and Playfair to support product expansion and international growth.
"Instead of yet another freelancer platform that simply digitizes transactions that could and would happen without it, Passionfruit is bringing a completely new workforce to the market. Gen Z will represent 27% of the global workforce by 2025 and it has been so inspiring to see our specialists as they say goodbye to the Victorian-age structure of the 9-5, and begin a new life working on their own terms. Better still, companies love working with them this way. Smart businesses are realizing that there’s a more elastic and efficient way to manage their relationship with talent."
