Investor Profile: Play Ventures — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Play Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund built specifically for the games industry. Founded in 2018 by gaming entrepreneurs Henric Suuronen and Harri Manninen, the firm operates from Singapore and Helsinki and invests globally in the teams it believes can build the next generation of gaming unicorns.

Investment thesis

Play Ventures runs on three principles: invest early, support founders, and collaborate. It identifies winning teams even before they have a product, then helps them with recruitment, design, fundraising, and a founder community that shares lessons across the portfolio. Its thesis has widened from pure free-to-play studios into two newer frontiers. First, "playable apps" — consumer apps such as Duolingo and Calm that borrow gaming's mastery of user acquisition, economy design, and monetisation to drive an $80-billion-plus market. Second, B2B, AI and infrastructure: adtech, payments and AI tooling that transform how games attract, retain and monetise users.

Sectors and stage

Play Ventures backs mobile and PC free-to-play game studios, consumer apps, and games-adjacent B2B services across the globe. It invests from pre-seed to Series A, with a typical first cheque of $500,000 to $1 million and the capacity to follow on in later rounds. The firm's capital base has scaled steadily: Fund I of roughly $40 million in 2018, Fund II of $135 million in 2021, and a third fund of around $140 million closed in 2024. Fund I returned 1.5x to investors in distributed capital in less than four years, and the firm has twice won the Pocket Gamer Investor of the Year award.

Notable portfolio

The firm's breakout win is Reworks, which it backed from the very first pre-seed round before Playtika acquired the company for up to $600 million. Other verified investments include Mobile Premier League (participated in the $95 million Series D that valued the Indian company at $945 million), Mainframe Industries, Bigger Games, mod.io, Appcharge, Scenario, PVX, Gamefam and Dataseat, the programmatic ad firm acquired by MGI/Verve Group. For Indian founders, one detail stands out: Play's first investment after closing Fund II was into India's All-Star Games, a $1.5 million pre-Series A round, and co-founder Harri Manninen has publicly named India as one of the ecosystems the firm is most excited about.

Partners

The firm was co-founded by Henric Suuronen — formerly of Nonstop Games, acquired by King — and Harri Manninen — formerly of Rocket Pack, acquired by Disney. General partners include Kenrick Drijkoningen, Phylicia Koh and Anton Backman, giving the partnership a genuinely operator-led flavour.

How to apply for funding from Play Ventures

Play Ventures invites founders to reach out through the contact details published on its official website, play.vc. Because the firm invests early — sometimes before a product exists — the pitch should lead with the team, the creative vision, and why the founders are the right people to build it. Warm introductions through portfolio founders or the wider gaming network carry particular weight with a thesis that prizes collaboration.