Startup Investment Fund doubles down on tech with $2.7 million investments and the creation of 500 jobs during lockdown

Haatch Ventures is a big believer in “putting your money where your mouth is.” The U.K.-based investment firm that provides investors with fund focused on making early-stage investments in high growth, is the ultimate proof that there is real conviction behind an organization’s culture and belief system.

As Britain experienced the worst pandemic since World War 2 and two lockdowns, Haatch Ventures continued to make big investments in promising tech startups. The company also plans to add six further businesses to that list during Lockdown 3 too.

Having promised to take action whilst many backed off further investment during the initial stages of the Pandemic the team has worked hard behind the scenes to turns those words into action, backing 15 companies critical to the next era and, critically, creating more than 500 new jobs in the process.

This week, the company also made additional $1.36 million (£1 million) investments from its super tax-efficient EIS investment fund*, which has been designed to back early-stage, high growth tech and digital companies aiming to take advantage of the changes brought about by Covid and the digitization of the economy.

Commenting on the investment Haatch Partner Simon Penson explained “We were clear at the start of this outbreak that despite the challenges we could all see ahead of us we remained incredibly bullish about the fortunes of digital start-ups and their role in the recovery.

“But talk is cheap, of course, and so hopefully now we’ve proved that our actions have spoken louder than our words. We are working night and day now to ensure that we help our economy reshape itself and recover from the shock Covid has created through those businesses,” he added.

The fund has written cheques for more than $4.07 million (£3 million) in 2020, with two-thirds of those penned and handed over during the first and second lockdowns. The team expects to write another $2.7 million (£2 million) of investment cheques during Lockdown 3 too.

The company’s latest investments completed this week added to the $1.36 million (£1 million) of investments made in September and October and the £1m+ in backing from the first lockdown period in spring.

Below is a list of new tech startups that recently joined the Haatch  portfolio:

• Avion (Seed) – Bootstrapped by two talented founders with a passion for helping software teams more successful Avion is a SaaS software business building out the world’s best platform for remote product teams, enabling them to build digital products better, faster, and more accurately than ever before.

• The Wine List (Seed) – The Wine List is a wine education start-up looking to level up all of those who want to learn more. Every month, it provides its members with the learning materials and community needed to learn about wine, along with the wine of course! It is a wine subscription focused on learning and one with designs on making that process digital!

• PubX (Seed) – PubX is a great example of a start-up borne out of past experiences teaching better ways of operating. Founded by a team of advertising veterans with a background in tech the business is focused on giving publishers and content owners a greater share of digital advertising revenues. Its deep learning Artificial Neural Network processes vast stores of data, developing and transacting meaningful optimizations to empower Publishers to optimize their revenue and make more from each click.

• The Bunch (Seed) – The Bunch was started by two university friends who had lived through the challenges of sharing and managing student house bills. But rather than settle for the ‘norm’ they instead went about building, from scratch, a platform to make it easy for shared houses to split important costs such as rent and WIFI bills! That business has already clocked up significant revenues but the plan now is much more ambitious and wide-ranging! Watch this space!

But the investment business isn’t resting on its laurels either and has already launched its 6Th EIS Fund, which will close before the end of the tax year.

Fellow Haatch Partner Fred Soneya explained: “Whilst the year has been a good one from job creation and investment perspective the most important period starts now as lots of people with tax bills look to the incredible tax advantages EIS can bring before the end of their tax year in April.
“It means that we are hoping to deploy several million pounds into a set of four to six high growth digital businesses and would welcome conversations with anyone now interested in investing alongside us.”