Meet Our Team
We are a team of hands-on value creators. We have been there. Built scaled companies of our own and sold them. We use that knowledge, experience and network to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies.
Fred was responsible for a number of high profile, large-scale innovation projects across one of the UK’s largest e-commerce businesses Kiddicare.com and post-acquisition, supermarket giant Morrisons.
Fred created award-winning, digital customer experiences bridging the online-offline gap in one of the UK’s largest grocers, Morrisons. This included the launch of browse and order points, mobile payments and electronic shelf edge labels powered by early stage technology companies.
To achieve this Fred worked with cutting edge early stage technology start-ups to integrate and piece together award-winning customer experiences.
Co-founding Haatch in 2013, Fred runs the investment process end-to-end and works with portfolio businesses in advisory and board roles.
Mark Bennett is VP of Hardware Partnerships for Google in APAC having previously led the international business of Google Play. As hardware partnerships lead, he heads up Google’s hardware sales team in APAC working with retailers, carriers and other B2B partners to grow market share in a range of categories with products such as Pixel, Google Home, Nest and Chromecast. In his previous role he focused on growing Google’s digital content business for games, apps, film and other content verticals in EMEA, APAC, and LATAM.
Prior to Google, Mark was the Managing Director of Blinkbox Music, where he grew the streaming music service to over 2.5 million users in 18 months. Previous to this, Mark held posts at Sainsbury’s, Global Media Vault, Microsoft, HMV, Warner Music UK and EMI.
Mark read Economics & Politics at University of Bath.
Kate has a critical role as Head of Compliance and Operations for Haatch Ventures. Kate is responsible for the businesses’ critical regulatory compliance and operational risk ensuring the smooth running of all investment activity.
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 22 years, Kate has held a number of senior positions within the Private Banking and Investment Management sectors whereby she has been responsible for delivering robust compliance frameworks and delivered efficient operational processes.
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.
After the Kiddicare acquisition, Scott became Managing Director and Chief Architect for Morrisons.com and has a wealth of experience in building and scaling large e-commerce businesses across the UK, most notably Kiddicare.com.
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.
Building a bootstrapped business is never an easy process, particularly when your sector focus is B2B and where people are the only asset, but that is exactly what Simon had done with Zazzle Media.
The digital marketing agency grew from nothing to delivering an EBIT north of £1 million in just under 6 years before being sold into one of the world’s biggest advertising holding companies (IPG).
As a result of that journey he is now seen as one of the most prominent minds in digital marketing and is regularly asked to speak and write about cutting edge digital growth both in the UK and around the world.
His real world experience in people management, building profitable start-ups and marketing make him an extremely valuable member of the central team.
Sam plays a key part at Haatch Ventures in our Investment Operations team. Sam works with investors to provide information, on-board, run AML/KYC checks and on-going communication. On the portfolio side, Sam works with Investee Companies to collect data, support with legal & tax filings and organise founder events within our portfolio and investor networks.
Elaine is all about the end customer and is constantly challenging our startups around customer experience. Elaine also brings her buying & commercial knowledge into our retail startups and works closely with them to develop commercial, scalable solutions.
Elaines extensive background in Kiddicare as a partner involved directing all parts of the business, with a specific focus on buying, commercial & customer service across thousands of products & millions of orders whilst keeping every customer happy.
Hannah has a vital role looking after the administration and accounts for the entire Haatch group including Haatch Angel, our co-working spaces Haatch Desks and EIS fund Haatch Ventures.
Hannah looks after everything from inbound enquiries to diary management and fund administration.
In addition to this Hannah provides administration and accounting support to portfolio companies.
Jeremy sits on the investment team and is responsible for leading deals from discovery, through our due diligence process through to writing cheques and offering post-investment support for portfolio companies. He’ll be looking at early-stage technology start-ups that fit our thesis and will be deploying capital from our SEIS and EIS funds.
