Playground Global

Playground Global is an incubator, accelerator, and venture capital firm founded in 2014. The firm was established by Andy Rubin, Bruce Leak, Matt Hershenson, and Peter Barrett. It is based in Palo Alto, California.

As of March 2019, the firm has 29 companies and its portfolio and has sold off its shares in five companies. In December 2018 for RightHand Robotics, a company developing robotics solution for supply chain purposes.

Funding

Playground Global specializes in funding companies that are building software-based hardware. Playground Global focuses on investing on companies in the early stage of development. Since 2016, the firm has raised a fund total of $540 million across two funding rounds. Its latest round was held in January 2017, amassing $40 million.

Playground Global's investments include Relativity Space, Next Silicon, Robust.AI, Strand Therapeutics, Owl Labs, Ayar Labs, RapidSOS, Virta, Agility Robotics, Algolux, Anjuna, Artificial, Blockfolio, Branch Metrics, uAvionix, Devialet, Essential Products, SUBPAC and Fathom Computing.

They have exited investments in eero, DeepScale, Canvas Technology, Nervana and MileZero.

Timeline

Associated investment funds

People

Name

Role

Adam Newman

Head of Infrastructure Operations

Alistair Inglis

Conceptual Designer

Andy Rubin

Founder/Managing Director

Anh Nguyen

Design Principal

Bruce Leak

Founder

Matt Hershenson

Founder

Peter Barrett

Founder

Documentaries, videos and podcasts

Title

Date

Link

Companies

Company

CEO

Location

Products/Services

Agility Robotics

Ayar Labs

Fathom Computing

MileZero

RightHand Robotics

Virta

News

Title

Author

Date

Publisher

Description

1910 Genetics' Jen Nwankwo and Playground Global's Jory Bell are joining us for Extra Crunch Live

Darrell Etherington

July 27, 2021

TechCrunch

Our Extra Crunch Live series continues with some heavy hitters in August, including Jen Nwankwo, founder and CEO at 1910 Genetics, and Playground Global General Partner Jory Bell. They'll be with us live on August 11 at 12 PM PT (3 PM ET) to tell us all about how Nwankwo and her startup won over [...]

Artificial raises $21M led by Microsoft's M12 for a lab automation platform aimed at life sciences R&D

Ingrid Lunden

May 18, 2021

TechCrunch

Automation is extending into every aspect of how organizations get work done, and today comes news of a startup that is building tools for one industry in particular: life sciences. Artificial, which has built a software platform for laboratories to assist with, or in some cases fully automate, research and development work, has raised $21.5 [...]

Extra Crunch Live: Join Playground Global co-founder Peter Barrett for a live Q&A on July 28

Kirsten Korosec

July 24, 2020

TechCrunch

Peter Barrett might be best known today as co-founder and CTO of Playground Global. But his experience in the technology world stretches back to when he was a teenager. Barrett's first security program got the attention of the NSA when he was just 19 years old. His career has been an adventure ever since, starting [...]