More than Investors

Scott is best-known for founding one of Britain’s largest e-commerce businesses Kiddicare.com which was subsequently acquired in cash for £70m, by Morrisons, one of the UK’s largest supermarkets.

Reaching 6th on the Retail-Week Power List, Scott is regarded by many as one of the UK’s most innovative business professionals in retail.

Founding Haatch, Scott has invested in, and developed businesses in the areas of ad tech, B2B SaaS (software as a service) and retail tech within the FMCG market including Elevaate, founded in 2014, enabling supplier monetisation programs across retailer websites.

Scott was awarded an OBE in 2022 for services to Technology and Retail E-commerce Entrepreneurship.

Fred is Co-Founder and General Partner of Haatch, where he oversees the firm's end-to-end operations.

He built his career by scaling what matters. At Kiddicare.com and, after its acquisition, at Morrisons, the UK's fourth-largest supermarket, Fred led high-profile, large-scale innovation programmes, partnering with cutting-edge early-stage startups to build award-winning digital experiences and close the online-offline gap for millions of customers every week.

Since co-founding Haatch in 2013, he has led from the front: launching the firm's tax-efficient funds in 2018 and its institutional funds in 2022. Over the past decade, he has invested capital in over 200 companies, created a strategy, process and operational environment to expand Haatch to over 3,000 investors, and delivered a run of industry-firsts across retail access, syndicate strategy, and fund technology.

Fred holds senior regulated positions at Haatch's FCA-authorised firm and led it to become the first manager to bring client money and custody fully in-house, setting a custody-first standard that is now raising the bar across the industry.

Most recently, he was appointed to the board of EISA, the trade body for the Enterprise Investment Scheme, engaging directly with government and policymakers to shape the future of early-stage investment in the UK.

Elaine is passionate about the end customer, and that focus continues to shape how she thinks about the businesses within the Haatch portfolio. Elaine's role has evolved to support the wider team, focusing on the overall health and smooth running of Haatch as a business - challenging thinking where needed, and drawing on her deep commercial and customer experience background to strengthen things from behind the scenes.

Elaine's extensive background in Kiddicare, where she was a founding partner involved in directing all parts of the business with a particular focus on buying, product sourcing, product design, and customer service across thousands of products and millions of orders, continues to inform the standards and thinking she brings to Haatch today.

Mark Bennett is the Vice President of Knowledge and Information Partnerships, EMEA at Google, where he is responsible for developing and managing strategic partnerships across a portfolio of core products, including Search, Gemini, Ads, Maps, Commerce, Research, Core, Labs and Google Deepmind.

His tenure at Google includes serving as Vice President of Platforms & Devices Partnerships, EMEA, where he led diverse teams focused on expanding Android Partnerships, Android Enterprise solutions, and user engagement with Google One, Google Photos, Google TV, and Google Play. Before that he led Android partnerships globally and prior to that role was based in Singapore where he successfully built and led Google's Hardware Partnerships for APAC.

Prior to Google, Mark was Managing Director of Blinkbox Music (Tesco). His extensive career includes leadership roles at Sainsbury’s, Global Media Vault, Microsoft, HMV, Warner Music UK, and EMI.

Jonathan is the ex-Chief Growth Officer of Crowdcube, Europe’s largest private investment platform, where he spent nearly a decade building it into a category-defining brand.

Joining as an early employee, he played a key role in scaling the business to £14 million in annual revenue and 150 staff across the UK and Europe, working directly with some of Europe’s most exciting consumer brands, including Monzo, Revolut, Moneybox, Zoe, Brewdog, and What3Words.

In his role at Haatch, Jonathan is dedicated to driving fundraising efforts across the firm’s multiple funds and seeking out new growth opportunities.

Alongside his role at Haatch, Jonathan founded edge, a growth consultancy that partners with consumer startups from Seed to Series A to deliver world-class crowdfunding rounds. A two-time TEDx speaker, regular panellist at global events, active early-stage investor, and non-executive director, he is passionate about the early-stage investment ecosystem.

Jeremy is a Partner at Haatch, where he leads the investment and portfolio teams and drives the firm's investments and M&A. Since joining in 2021, he has designed the investment strategy behind one of the UK's most active pre-seed and seed funds.

His instinct for backing founders comes from years spent in their seat. Early in his career, he was Chief Operating Officer of a VC-backed startup funded by Forward Partners, Founders Factory and angels including Sir John Hegarty, and later took the helm as Managing Director to lead the commercial turnaround of a university spinout, co-founded by Peter Saunders OBE, built on patented cold-storage technology. That operating experience carried into a venture at Playfair Capital, an early-stage backer of Stripe, Thought Machine and Trouva, where he worked the pre-seed rounds of companies now defining their categories: among them Omnipresent, the global employment platform acquired by Deel, Nory (€14.7m Series A) and Protex AI ($36m Series B). One of those deals, AeroCloud, the cloud-native airport-management platform, brought him to Haatch: the firm backed the pre-seed alongside Playfair, and the company has since raised a $12.6m Series A.

At Haatch, Jeremy works with founders on what makes or breaks an early company: sales. Having built his career on the commercial side of high-growth startups, he helps founders turn early traction into repeatable revenue and a fundable next round. He led the firm's investment into Data & AI Literacy Academy, now one of the strongest revenue-generating companies in the portfolio.

Jeremy is also an active angel investor: one of his earliest pre-seed bets has recently raised a $30m+ Series A led by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn.

Olivia Drinnan is Director of Advisor Fundraising at Haatch, where she leads the firm's adviser distribution strategy and relationships with financial advisers, wealth managers and strategic partners across the UK.

She built her career helping advisers navigate tax-efficient investing. An ex-Octopus Investments Business Development Manager, Olivia has spent more than eight years working across venture capital fundraising, intermediary distribution and strategic partnerships, supporting advisers in incorporating SEIS and EIS into sophisticated client tax planning strategies.

Before joining Haatch, Olivia held senior fundraising, strategic partnership and marketing director roles at Deepbridge Capital, where she led a nationwide adviser education programme, delivering events and training to more than 500 financial adviser firms. She also developed the firm's online SEIS and EIS learning platform and led its structured EIS training programme, helping advisers build technical knowledge and confidence in recommending venture capital investments.

Since joining Haatch, Olivia has led the firm's adviser fundraising strategy, expanding Haatch's adviser network to more than 3,000 financial advisers and securing the firm's inclusion on 13 new adviser and discretionary investment manager panels. She works directly with financial advisers and their clients to structure tax-efficient investment solutions, supporting capital raising across Haatch's SEIS and EIS funds while strengthening the firm's adviser distribution network through strategic partnerships, educational initiatives and industry engagement.

Olivia leads Haatch's adviser education programme, developing CPD-accredited content, webinars, and technical resources that help financial advisers navigate the complexities of SEIS and EIS.

Contact Olivia - olivia@haatch.com

Jessica Fox is Head of Investor Relations at Haatch, where she leads the firm's investor communications and engagement strategy across its growing community of private investors, financial advisers and strategic partners. She is responsible for ensuring investors receive clear, transparent and timely communications throughout the investment lifecycle, from fundraising and onboarding through to portfolio reporting, tax documentation and exits.

Working closely with Haatch's investment, compliance, and portfolio teams, Jessica oversees investor reporting, quarterly fund updates, and educational content, while continually enhancing the investor experience through new technology, automation, and feedback-driven improvements. She also plays a key role in the firm's Consumer Duty framework, helping ensure investor communications deliver fair outcomes and support informed decision-making.

Prior to joining Haatch, Jessica worked at Calculus Capital, one of the UK's leading providers of EIS and VCT investments, where she specialised in investor relations, marketing and adviser relationships. Earlier in her career, she held client-facing roles at 7IM and Close Brothers Asset Management, supporting financial advisers and high-net-worth clients across a broad range of investment solutions.

Jessica combines extensive experience in tax-efficient investing with a passion for building long-term investor relationships through clear communication, transparency and exceptional service.

Contact Jessica directly at jessica@haatch.com or 07958 213122.

Tom leads Haatch's direct investor channel, holding primary responsibility for raising capital into the firm's EIS and SEIS Funds from high-net-worth individuals. He is the main point of contact for direct investors, guiding them from first conversation through allocation and across the life of their investment.

Having joined Haatch in 2024 following several years in early-stage investment and investor relations, starting at a structured credit hedge fund before moving to another EIS manager as a Senior Associate, where he personally originated over £5.5m. Since joining, he has scaled the direct channel through Haatch's strongest fundraising period to date, contributing to a record EIS close in 2026 and an investor base now exceeding 3,000.

He also brings a wide breadth of knowledge on personal taxation, particularly as it relates to claiming SEIS and EIS relief.

Contact Tom directly at tom@haatch.com.

Sophie leads the Platform function at Haatch, supporting over 200 portfolio companies and 400+ founders across every stage of their journey. From strategy and network connections to events and the Operating Partner programme, Sophie is the connective tissue between Haatch and its portfolio - making sure founders have the right people, resources, and introductions at exactly the right time.

Her instincts for commerce and operations were shaped early. From a young age, Sophie worked in every corner of her family business through every holiday, evening, and weekend. Learning product sourcing, shop floor operations, customer service, and pick-and-pack dispatch from the ground up. At 16, the business was acquired by Morrisons, one of the UK’s largest supermarkets. Sophie gained her first taste of corporate life, was invited to spend time with the CEO and board, and contributed directly to the operational rollout of the Kiddicare store estate, travelling the length of the UK to support recruitment for every new store opening.

After that, she joined a Haatch-backed business where she built and scaled the Not on the High Street account, growing it to reach all 5,000 of their retail partners. Following the company’s acquisition by Quotient Technology in 2018, Sophie stepped into a Senior Lead role working with US clients, rolling out technology across major grocers and CPG brands across America, while also owning all self-serve customers, budget forecasting, customer support, and trading direction.

She joined Haatch in 2021, bringing with her a rare combination of hands-on commercial experience, operator empathy, and a genuine understanding of what founders need to hear, and who they need to know.

Daniel is General Counsel at Haatch, where he leads the legal function across the Haatch group. He sits at the heart of the business, holding primary responsibility for all legal matters across Haatch and its managed funds.

His remit spans the full investment lifecycle: advising on and executing funding rounds across Haatch's investment activity, including deployments through the Haatch SEIS Fund, Haatch EIS Fund and Haatch Direct, as well as leading on subsequent funding rounds, exits and disposals across a portfolio of approximately 200 companies. He is also transactional lead for Haatch's institutional fund management relationships, including the British Business Bank mandate and separate institutional VC funds.

As Haatch's primary point of contact for all legal and transactional matters, Daniel oversees external legal counsel where required and leads on the group's broader legal arrangements, from supplier and commercial contracts to internal employment and consultancy matters. He is also a trusted advisor to the wider Haatch portfolio, supporting companies on everything from routine queries to complex M&A and strategically significant commercial agreements.

Daniel combines sharp legal judgment with strong commercial instinct, consistently aligning advice with Haatch's business objectives and risk appetite. Drawing on extensive in-house experience, he delivers a service of excellence to the Haatch team and the wider group.

Kate works part-time with the Compliance team on the business’s critical regulatory compliance and operational framework.

Kate has extensive experience in these fields and works alongside the Haatch team to continually enhance the operational capability and effectiveness of the business. Over the last 23 years, Kate has held a number of senior positions within the private banking and investment management sectors at HSBC, JP Morgan and Signia Wealth, in which she has been responsible for delivering robust compliance
frameworks and delivering efficient operational processes.

Charlie is a Principal at Haatch, where he joined as the firm's second investment team member in 2021. Since then, he's helped build out Haatch's pre-seed and seed strategies, growing from analyst to Principal. He now leads deployment of the seed fund, investing up to £750k alongside tier 1 investors.

Charlie has led investments across multiple sectors, with a focus on Enterprise AI, Fintech and Cybersecurity. He led Haatch's investment into Native Teams, the global employment and payments platform and Haatch's largest exit to date. Other investments led by Charlie include Yaso, Fulfilment.com, Bourn, Cybaverse, Falkin, AppFactor and Popp, all of which have graduated to their next stage and raised funding from tier 1 investors.

Charlie works with founders specifically at the hardest moment in a company's life: the pivot. Having started his career as an operator on GTM teams in Applied AI and Vertical SaaS, he has a track record of helping teams that have outgrown or been failed by their original model reinvent themselves into something fundable and fast-growing. He guided a portfolio company’s pivot from consumer to B2B, taking them from the brink to £1m ARR and a fresh funding round, and he helped another move from a marketplace to SaaS after they hit a ceiling, unlocking £3m ARR and a significant seed round within 18 months.

When he's not talking to founders, Charlie shares VC insights and startup content. He has built a community of over 15,000 Gen Z founders and is becoming a recognised voice on how founders raise capital and navigate the venture world, which, in turn, generates high-quality, proprietary dealflow for the fund.

Hannah plays a central role in the Haatch group, serving as Head of Operations across the full breadth of the business. With razor-sharp focus on accounting, financial reporting, investor operations, and process excellence, she has built the operational backbone that underpins everything Haatch does - ensuring every function runs with precision, efficiency, and the highest standards of compliance.

Managing the operational complexity of over 200 portfolio companies and a diverse investor base of more than 3,000 individuals, Hannah has architected the platforms and processes that allow Haatch to scale at pace without sacrificing quality or transparency. 

Beyond her group-wide remit, Hannah brings her deep operational expertise directly to Haatch's portfolio companies, providing hands-on accounting and administrative support that helps founders build solid foundations from day one. She bridges the strategic and the operational with ease, contributing meaningfully at every level of the business.

Stephen began his career in the Asset Management department of PwC where he performed audits on a wide range of alternative investment funds. He subsequently worked in SEI Investments (NYSE: SEI) conducting financial and regulatory reporting. Most recently Stephen spent ten years at Mainspring Fund Services working with venture capital fund managers and was part of the senior management team that led the company through acquisition by the Apex Group.

At Haatch, Stephen supports through an advisory role covering Operations & Fund management as both our Operations Advisor and Fractional Fund Controller.

Aini is part of Haatch's investment team, where she leads investments end-to-end from sourcing and building conviction through diligence to the Investment Committee and completion. She has sourced and led deals across a wide range of sectors, from applied AI and cybersecurity to health tech, climate tech, fintech and data infrastructure, and is well-networked across the early-stage ecosystem, drawing on relationships with 40+ funds to strengthen deal flow and open follow-on capital for portfolio companies as they scale.

On the portfolio side, Aini actively supports 75 companies, working alongside founders on governance, KPIs, and go-to-market execution, including board observer seats across many of them. She also supports founders through their fundraises, leveraging her investor network to secure lead term sheets for their next rounds. Aini built Haatch's founder events programme, securing partners including HSBC Innovation Banking, Novabook and Microsoft to deliver sessions, and launched both the firm's founder newsletter and its operator partner network.

Before Haatch, Aini was a founding team member developing a medtech device for acute spinal cord injury, and ran an incubator programme helping university student teams prototype and take their first steps toward raising, through to pre-Series A. She also brings operator experience from earlier roles in HR tech and biotech, and studied Medicine (MBBS) at King's College London.

Marwa is an Associate at Haatch, where she leads deployment of the firm's SEIS fund and manages the investment process from initial founder conversations through diligence, Investment Committee and completion. Since joining Haatch, she has led the investment process for 24 early-stage companies across sectors, including enterprise AI, cybersecurity, fintech and healthcare.

Before moving into venture, Marwa was a founder herself, raising venture capital to build and scale a consumer technology business to over 22,000 customers. Having experienced first-hand the challenges of fundraising, building a product and navigating early-stage growth, she brings a founder perspective to investing and understands the decisions founders face when building from the earliest stages.

Marwa’s investment approach is shaped by evaluating over 2,000 early-stage companies each year and developing pattern recognition around the signals that matter most at pre-seed: founder-market fit, customer pain, market opportunity and the ability to build a scalable business.

Matt is a seasoned recruitment and technology consulting leader having worked at Harvey Nash as Managing Director & CEO across the UK, Ireland, Australia, and Japan for over 23 years.

Matt joined The IN Group as Group CRO in 2020 and is currently Managing Director at Investigo and InX (part of TIG) across the UK and EU for all technology, CIO and Transformation brands.

Matt has also held NED & Advisory roles with Data Clarity and BLOK Bioscience.

Jim is the co-founder of the award-winning brand and performance marketing agency, Threepipe. Jim founded the agency in 2004 as a traditional PR agency before merging the company with a paid media agency and then acquiring a creative agency and then an SEO agency.  Jim then oversaw the creation of two new teams to capture rising media spending across retail media and marketplaces. The result was a business of over 100 people working with scale-up and challenger brands across both B2B and B2C sectors, providing growth marketing services across PR, social, paid media, SEO, marketplaces, and data science.

In 2019, Threepipe was sold to a global technology consulting firm, Reply. In the last four years Jim has been responsible for senior client counsel and business development and in 2024 will exit the business.

Jim was included in Performance Marketing Magazine’s most influential people working in the industry and Provoke Media shortlisted him as one of Europe’s most innovative marketers.

Marcel is a PhD researcher in Statistical Machine Learning at the University of Oxford, where he focuses on deep learning and robust Bayesian methods, with a particular interest in integrating them with generative architectures and reinforcement learning.

He began his career with a degree in Physics from the University of Cambridge before attending Harvard University. There, he focused on data science, collaborating with PhD students and MIT professors at the intersection of data and neurodegenerative diseases. Marcel joined McKinsey & Co. in London as a consultant before transitioning into Axion Ray, an AI manufacturing startup as the first employee and founding team member.

At Axion Ray, Marcel built the initial product lead team, led deployments across multiple six- and seven-figure accounts, and set up the company’s UK operations. The company raised over $20M in funding, with backing from Amplo, Boeing, and Inspired Partners, and a Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

James Brooke was the Founder and CEO of Amplience which he built from the ground up to become a digital experience SaaS leader serving hundreds of leading retail and B2B eCommerce brands with next-generation content and asset management capabilities.

James currently serves as CEO at Sweft LLC, a retail-focused product workflow automation business, and as a strategic board advisor to Storystream.ai.

David’s journey has combined deep technology, investing and solid academic foundations. Currently within the world of Deep Tech, he serves as Founder’s Associate at Nostos Genomics, a startup that helps diagnose people with rare genetic illnesses in <10 minutes and has raised ~$10M. Nostos is a prototype Nural Fund investment being formed off the basis of research from ETH Zürich while retaining a clear commercialisation route.

Emma is best known for helping founders translate early commercial traction into scalable revenue engines, combining commercial strategy, data intelligence and enterprise partnerships to get companies to £5M+ ARR.

She brings deep experience scaling fintech and sustainability businesses from the ground up, with a particular focus on structuring enterprise partnerships, positioning complex products, and turning data and AI capabilities into commercial return.

As a Haatch Operating Partner, Emma works with Seed to Series A teams on commercial strategy and go-to-market, enterprise partnership development, product positioning and messaging, and founder advisory, all with a sharp focus on accelerating the path from early traction to scalable, repeatable revenue.

Roei is best known for building and scaling Connectd, a B2C subscription platform powering the fractional and portfolio career economy. Since founding Connectd in 2022, he has scaled the business from 0 to £12m ARR in under four years, driven by a fully remote go-to-market motion.

Previously, Roei founded RealSport, a creator and content platform that reached 7m MAUs and secured enterprise partnerships with major rights holders including the Premier League, NBA and NFL, before being acquired by Gfinity in 2018.

As a Haatch Operating Partner, Roei helps founders achieve venture-style growth with far less capital by building brand, distribution, and network effects into the product and go-to-market. He supports teams with positioning and demand gen, B2C subscription mechanics (CAC, LTV, retention), and the practical systems that create repeatable, compounding growth.

Nick is best known for helping founders and leadership teams build the operating cadence, team shape, and execution engine that turns early traction into repeatable scale.

He brings 15+ years of experience scaling and leading teams of 300+ people through high-growth phases, with a practical focus on leadership development, organisational design, and building execution engines that hold as companies scale.

As a Haatch Operating Partner, Nick works hands-on with Seed to Series A teams on operating rhythm and accountability, founder and leadership team development, hiring and org design for the next stage, and strengthening delivery and customer outcomes, all while keeping a sharp commercial lens on margin, value, and account growth.

Richard is best known as a sales-led operator who helps founders prioritise what truly moves revenue, build lean systems and teams that run without them, and progress from founder-led hustle to scale-ready execution.

He scaled ARR from £1.5m to £5m in 13.5 months and brings extensive experience across enterprise sales and commercial growth, with a practical focus on capital-efficient scaling and building sustainable, high-performing businesses.

As a Haatch Operating Partner, Richard works hands-on with Seed to Series A leadership teams on GTM strategy, hiring and organisational design, and commercial operating cadence. He helps founders shift from being the key person in every deal to leading a scale-ready business, tightening prioritisation, building repeatable systems, and driving efficient growth.