London-based Playfair Capital joined forces with Tech Nation and Google for Startups for the sixth edition of their Female Founder Office Hours initiative.
The event will witness over 300 female founders and 120 leading venture capital firms from around the world including Accel, Amadeus, Atomico, Balderton, Creandum, EQT, Notion, Partech, Project A, and Seedcamp, making it Europe’s largest-ever mentoring and fundraising event.
What to expect from this event?
With an aim to break down investment barriers for female founders, each founder will be given the opportunity to meet four investors in an hour of remote office hours to discuss their tech business idea, ask for advice, pitch for investment, or find a mentor.
Speaking on the development, Chris Smith, Playfair Capital’s Managing Partner, says, “Two years since the first edition of Female Founder Office Hours and I’m thrilled that we are seeing an increasing percentage of attendees go on to raise funding from VCs and angels. Yet the fact our sixth event will be the largest ever tells us that the problems of access for women founders and the resulting imbalance in funding remain. With our partners, investors, and the support of the ecosystem we are fully committed to continuing the mission we have started.”
This sixth event will use AI matching technology to improve the relevance of founder to investor matching in order to increase the chances of funding being secured.
Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Startups UK, adds, “Access to networks and warm introductions are key when it comes to fundraising. It’s a project where everybody wins – the VCs get access to exceptional founders, the founders get much-needed cash to grow their businesses, and the customers get better, more inclusive, more competitive products, delivered by a more diverse tech ecosystem.”
Data from previous events
According to Playfair Capital, the previous five editions of the event witnessed a total of 3,000 one-on-one mentoring sessions with 680 founders and 150 investors taking part.
As per the data from the previous five events, over 27 per cent of attended companies went on to secure funding from VCs, angel investors, or other sources.
Some of these startups that raised funding include Anansi, Freyda, HIVED, Vira Health, and Walking on Earth. They have raised a total of £184M in funding altogether.
Investing in entrepreneurs building technology companies
Founded in 2013 by Federico Pirzio-Biroli, Playfair Capital is an early-stage fund that backs companies early and with conviction. It claims to combine the best aspects of angel investing with a focused fund, to invest in “ambitious” founders.
Playfair takes a sector-agnostic approach and its investments span deep tech, SaaS, marketplaces, and B2B companies. The firm has backed founders of more than 70 companies including Mapillary (acquired by Facebook), CryptoFacilities (acquired by Kraken), Omnipresent, Orca AI, Ravelin, sprout.ai, Thought Machine, Trouva, and Vinehealth, among others.
The fund invests between £100K-£500K in pre-Seed and Seed stage companies and raises rounds of up to £2M.
Playfair is looking to extend the impact beyond the UK and has been making its playbook available to any other fund that wants to hold events for underrepresented founders.
To date, female founder-focused events have been held in the US with Anthemis, Diversity VC and Ladies Who Launch, and Southeast Asia with Cocoon Capital and Click Ventures.
Other events the firm has supported include Access All for BAME founders with Floww, Force Over Mass, and Wayra UK in the UK, Ask Me Anything with Grove Ventures in Israel, and Founders Labs with the Kansas City University Venture Fund.