Kenya’s Mobius Motors investor Playfair Capital, a UK venture capital firm is looking for startups that use deep tech and data to create a defensible proposition that has longevity in the just launched Ksh 3.2 Billion Playfair Fund II.
The firm whose founding partner is Federico Pirzio-Birol is promising opportunities for early-stage companies with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision. According to the firm, Business to Business (B2B), Software as a Service (SaaS) and the marketplace are its areas of strength and expertise.
In the just launched
The just launched Playfair fund II, has already brought on board SensorFlow; Smart, wireless IoT solution that monitors, analyses and automates commercial building environments to create massive energy savings, and Sightec; a solution looking to open up the skies to safe, reliable and high-performance air mobility with pioneering computer vision and AI flight technologies.
Through PlayFair I, the firm backed 54 startups in 11 countries that included Kenya’s motor vehicle manufacturing company Mobius; conceived by reimagining the vehicle around the needs of the African consumer – common road terrain, typical vehicle loading, and average income levels.
Federico Pirzio-Biroli who founded the Venture Capital firm in 2013 recently relocated to Kenya where he says he is better positioned to tap into EastAfrica’s burgeoning startup ecosystem and eventually across Africa.
Pirzio-Biroli who plans to keep his stake at Mobius through PlayFair Capital said that the motor vehicle company is an example of businesses that provide critical products as well as playing a big role in the region’s industrialization. “Our continued commitment to the company reflects our excitement to realise this vision,” Says the PlayFair Capital founder
As it did in PlayFair Fund I, the firm is looking to invest in pre-seed and seed stage entrepreneurs with whom they can work hard to bring their visionary technologies to the masses.