Play

Play Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on gaming and consumer applications. It invests early in game studios, consumer apps and the related B2B infrastructure and services startups that support them, backing teams globally and, by its own description, often before a product exists. The firm frames its thesis around gaming as a $200B+ per year business and "playable apps" — consumer applications such as learning and wellness products that apply free-to-play gaming techniques in user acquisition, virtual currencies and rewards, economy design, segmentation, LTV prediction and monetization — which it sizes as an $80B+ market. A third area of focus is B2B, AI and infrastructure covering adtech, payments infrastructure and AI tools for user acquisition, retention and monetization; named examples include Appcharge (payments), Scenario (AI) and PvX (performance marketing/financing).

The firm operates multiple funds. Fund I was its debut vehicle; Fund II closed at US$135M, taking assets under management to $175M across both funds at that time; a third fund of $140M was announced as its largest to date. A Play Future Fund covering blockchain and crypto has been led by partner Kenrick Drijkoningen since July 2021. Play Ventures states it has been chosen by 50+ portfolio companies and has won the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Award for Investor of the Year in consecutive years.

The team spans Singapore, Helsinki, Berlin, Paris, Seoul and Istanbul, and includes founding partners Henric Suuronen and Harri Manninen, general partners Phylicia Koh, Anton Backman and Kenrick Drijkoningen, plus dedicated platform, talent, events, compliance and finance/operations staff.