Back in 2022, we first recognised the promise in YASO. Since then, we’ve been increasingly impressed by what Jonny, James, Adam and the whole team have built, in both product and execution. It’s with full conviction that we joined YASO’s latest Series A, led by Puma Growth Partners, as both an early and now continuing backer.

Why We Invested Early and Why We’re Investing More

Our journey with YASO started when the core problem they were solving caught our attention: global consumer brands wanting to scale into China but facing a tangled, fragmented infrastructure, complex compliance, logistical hurdles, limited visibility, high entry costs, and the challenge of maintaining control over brand positioning.

YASO’s vision, to be the end to end operating system enabling brands to navigate China’s e-commerce and social commerce ecosystem, aligned perfectly with the kind of opportunities Haatch seeks to back: big markets, hard problems, strong technical capability, and teams who really understand what they’re taking on.

What’s Changed and What This Round Means

With the new £8.25M / $11M raise, YASO is now even better positioned to accelerate growth. The capital will be used to:

• Scale sales and marketing, helping more global brands access China more quickly and efficiently.
• Onboard new clients at a larger scale, refining the customer journey and limiting friction.
• Expand platform capabilities, building more robust integrations (logistics, tax, analytics, compliance etc.) to reduce the need for brands to find workarounds.
• Increase operational capacity, ensuring the internal team can sustain high quality, speed and customer satisfaction as demand scales.

We’re proud to be investing alongside Puma Growth Partners, who led the round, as well as Guinness Ventures, Playfair Capital, Koro Capital, Sequel, Portfolio Ventures, Nodes, and Founders Capital. This strong syndicate brings together deep expertise and long-term conviction in YASO’s opportunity.

The Founders and Team

We’ve seen first-hand how Jonny, James and Adam bring together deep domain expertise, not just as operators and founders, but as individuals fluent in Mandarin with strong experience in Chinese commerce and e-commerce. This isn’t a team that’s learning the landscape. They’ve already been there.

Today, YASO has about 20 people combining China market experts, technologists, and founders. Their London and Shanghai footprint gives them local insight and global reach.

The Opportunity and Our Conviction

China remains the world’s largest e-commerce market, with growth from approx. US$2.1T in 2020 to US$2.5T in 2025, and projections reaching US$3.5T by 2031. (goyaso.com)

We believe there is a huge opportunity for a platform like YASO, one that reduces friction, provides transparency, enables brands to launch without needing to build everything locally or relinquish control.

At Haatch, we don’t back many companies, we back relentlessly. YASO is one of those companies. We’re excited to be part of this journey, and can’t wait to see what the next phases bring: more brands launched, more scaling, more impact.