Silicon Is Back: Playground Global's Decade-Long Bet On Hardware, Energy And Deep Tech Looks Prescient
In the decade-plus since Playground Global's founding, it has built its investment thesis around the idea that breakthroughs in science and engineering - not just software - would create the next generation of valuable companies. Company co-founder Peter Barrett breaks it down in this Crunchbase News Q&A. Gené Teare For much of the past decade, Silicon Valley chased software and apps.
Key Takeaways
- Playground Global was investing elsewhere: in semiconductors, quantum computing, robotics and energy infrastructure.
Now, as AI drives a scramble for chips, power and data-center capacity, Playground co-founder Peter Barrett believes the venture industry is finally returning to the physical technologies it neglected.
- "We've been at it for more than a decade," he said.
"In recent years, as AI is eating software, people are scrambling back to recognize that the energy, semiconductors and infrastructure they operate on all need capital too.
- "Science lets you follow breadcrumbs from prehistoric plumage to semiconductors.
One principle can be applied somewhere orthogonal and create extraordinary value," Barrett said in a lengthy interview with Crunchbase News.
- The quantum computing startup PsiQuantum , a Playground portfolio company, moved in when it had three employees and moved out when it reached 90.
- Peter Barrett: It is about reducing new results in science and engineering into commercial and societal value.
Stats & Key Facts
- #The firm recently closed a $475 million fund focused on investing in deep-tech startups at seed and Series A.
- #Barrett went on to found video game developer Rocket Science Games , joined WebTV to build the entertainment browser acquired by Microsoft , and was subsequently CTO at CloudCar prior to co-founding Playground Global in 2015.
- #The location hosts 350 people, including those working at its portfolio companies and others with adjacencies working from the lab.
- #The quantum computing startup PsiQuantum , a Playground portfolio company, moved in when it had three employees and moved out when it reached 90.
Playground Global was investing elsewhere: in semiconductors, quantum computing, robotics and energy infrastructure. Now, as AI drives a scramble for chips, power and data-center capacity, Playground co-founder Peter Barrett believes the venture industry is finally returning to the physical technologies it neglected. "Silicon Valley has done very well with software, but while software was eating the world, they forgot about silicon," Barrett told Crunchbase News in an interview.
The firm recently closed a $475 million fund focused on investing in deep-tech startups at seed and Series A. In the decade-plus since its founding, it has built its investment thesis around the idea that breakthroughs in science and engineering - not just software - would create the next generation of valuable companies. With demand surging for compute, semiconductors and energy, Barrett argues the rest of the industry is now catching up.
" Barrett is originally from Australia and came to Silicon Valley in the 1980s. He's been coding for 50 years, he said, after developing an early and deep respect for science and engineering as the child of two engineers. His childhood was steeped in punch cards, draftsmen and drawings of control systems and machinery, he said.
For more details please read the original article at Crunchbase News.
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