Chris Smith

Chris is Managing Partner at Playfair, a Kauffman Fellow (Class 25), a Contributor to Forbes and helped found our D&I initiative - Female Founder Office Hours (FFOH) - in 2019.

He focuses his investing activities on pre-seed opportunities in the UK and Europe. Chris is particularly interested in robotics, autonomous transportation, business and industrial automation (especially through AI, ML and computer vision), HealthTech (except diagnostics and therapeutics) and B2B SaaS. He loves finding companies operating in unloved/overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption.

Prior to joining Playfair, Chris was an operator at plan.com where he held senior roles including Sales Director, Head of Tech/BI and Head of Product Development. He was the 8th member of the team and over a 5 year period built an award winning sales team, introduced new products (organically and through acquisition) and led the roll out of version 4 of the platform. Revenues grew to £60m in 2018 and the company ranked #1 in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

In addition to his roles at plan.com, Chris worked on the re-launch/re-branding of Vannin Capital (another Bramden Investments' portfolio company which was acquired by Fortress Investment Group LLC in September 2019).

Chris executed 15 angel investments across the UK and US from 2008 to 2018 with six exits to date including SuperAwesome (acq. Epic Games), Nearbuy Systems (acq. RetailNext), Compology (acq. RoadRunner Recycling) & Bidstack (LON:BIDS). He is passionate about investing in tech companies and supporting founders using his extensive operational and legal experience.

In his previous life, Chris spent nearly a decade in the City as a transactional lawyer. He has worked with some of the world’s leading private equity and venture capital funds on predominantly international acquisitions, disposals and restructurings. At Weil, he spent time on secondment to the Silicon Valley office’s patent litigation team, UK-based food manufacturer Premier Foods and the Asset Protection Agency.

He was also the founder of a telecoms business in 2001 offering discounted international calling from 14 countries which he partially exited via an MBO in 2005.

Managing Partner

If a pre-seed investor asks for revenue, they aren't a pre-seed investor 🚩

We're on track to make 7 new investments this year and this is the split

5 - no revenue, zero, zilch, nothing

1 - founder has hobby level of revenues

1 - founders have consulting revenue from a single project

Investors need to stop claiming that pre-seed has changed when it hasn't

Pre-seed = first money in; founders + a plan; no revenues; high risk...

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

7 years at Playfair ❤️ 

The most incredible journey so far with the best team in venture (and probably anywhere) 

I'm hugely grateful to so many people, but particularly Federico Pirzio-Biroli, Joe Thornton and Georgia Taylor Foster for taking a chance on me in 2018

To Henrik Wetter Sanchez for being the best partner, always having my back and being there through life's ups and downs

To all the founders I have the privilege to work with, my team, our advisors and everybody in the ecosystem who says nice things about us - thank you so much for everything 🙏

Here's to the next 7 🚀

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

I want an investor who has genuine empathy and has my back, but how do I test for this? 👀

Ask these 2 questions

(1) Do you support your founders doing secondaries? 

Good answer: yes, some recent examples where they have, understand that a founder not worrying about day-to-day finances can focus 100% on building

Bad answer: a wrinkled nose, old school attitude that founders need to be all in (and pay themselves as little as possible), no examples

(2) Have any of your founders had kids? 

Good answer: yes, genuine happiness, names and some details, insights into how they managed parental leave with challenges of building

Bad answer: same as question (1)

Don't be afraid to ask the softer questions ahead of signing a term sheet

You'll dramatically increase your chances of success with an aligned investor

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

If you're a scaleup looking for a new home then come and join ours at 8 Warner Yard 🏡

The space is perfect for a fast growing company and you'll have awesome neighbours upstairs 😜 

Originally a stables, in recent years it's been home to startups, accelerators and funds 

Fully plug & play, it's immediately available

Full details in the link below 👇

#startups #scaleups #technology #entrepreneurship #office #work #business #ceo #culture

Boom! Numerai has raised a $30m Series C at a $500m valuation from leading university endowments, Union Square Ventures, Shine Capital & Paul Tudor Jones 💰

An early investment from Playfair Fund 1, it's been an incredible journey watching the company fulfil their vision of building the last hedge fund, powered by AI and built by the world's best data scientists

Numerai has never grown so fast

Over the past three years, they've grown AUM from ~$60m to $550m – including an extra $100m in the past month

In 2024, the Meta Model delivered a net return of 25.45% with only a single down month

With the new equity capital and J.P. Morgan's capacity, they are now positioned to scale toward $1 billion in AUM and beyond

Congrats Richard C. and the entire Numerai team 👏👏👏

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Founders there are 3 distinct ways to play the VC game 🎯

Knowing which one you are playing massively increases your chances of winning

Game 1 - one round and done aka Seed Strapping

Raise enough capital to get off the ground from investors who match your timeline and return expectations (generally angels but maybe some VCs)

Game 2 - raise only what you need against clear revenue milestones

This approach likely sees you raise pre-seed/seed, Series A, B and maybe C, optimising the quantum and timing of the round to minimise dilution

Game 3 - raise as much as you can whenever you can aka Hyperscaling

Raise the biggest possible rounds at the highest possible valuations to move as quickly as possible and try to become the category winner in your space

There is no 'right' game, just pick the one that works for you based on your personal risk appetite and the market opportunity

Any questions, let me know in the comments 👇

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You can't get any earlier than this - an event for stealth pre-VC founders 👀 

If you're shaping an early concept, join Henrik from Playfair and Maria from Openseed VC on Saturday 29th November

They'll take you through

Building a strong fundraising narrative 📖

How to rally and manage investor interest 🤑

What you need to validate before you are ready to go out 🔬

Plus you'll get to meet and network with a bunch of founders at the same stage for peer-to-peer insights 🤝

Register using the link below 👇

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

From building websites as a kid to CEO and co-founder of StackOne, today’s “8 Questions with Playfair” is a great insight into the entrepreneurial journey 🎢

Romain Sestier reflects on his early days and how he ended up building StackOne into the market leading integration gateway for agents and SaaS

He explains the appeal of taking big risks and working hard to make them pay off 💪

The importance of saying “no” to customers to stay focused on PMF ⛔

And making sure you use your investors (don’t ask, don’t get) 🤝

My favourite quote:

'It can be attractive to think that product-market fit is achieved by having a great product, but actually finding the right market is the most important. The product will follow.’

Thanks for sharing your story with us 🙏

Link to the full blog in the comments 👇

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

A VC update that's about real business launches and product updates not fundraising or 0 -> $XXXm ARR in Y days/weeks/months 🤯

In the last week

1) Orca AI launched Co-Captain, the first real-time vessel-to-vessel maritime intelligence network.

2) Passionfruit launched PIP, their AI-native Marketing co-pilot

3) YASO sold 45,000 units in 30 days driven by Singles Day

Shares your launches and updates in the comments below

Let's build 🛠

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

From a PhD at ETH Zurich to CEO and co-founder of NetFabric.ai, today's "8 Questions with Playfair" is a must read for any deep tech founders 📖

Benjamin (Beni) Bichsel takes us on his journey from cutting edge research to figuring out that he could maximise his impact as an entrepreneur

He takes us through his AHA! moment 💡

The importance of your network and thinking laterally 🤔

And focusing on building a company that makes sense to you ✅

My favourite quote:

'Don't try to game the system, chase the latest hype cycle, or build something just to maximize perception. That only works in the short term, if at all.'

Thanks for sharing your story with us 🙏

Link to the full blog in the comments 👇

#Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

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