Fred Soneya
Founder of Haatch
Fred Soneya
Founder of Haatch
Tivat
Overview
Work Experience
Co-Founder & Partner
2013 - Current
I Co-Founded Haatch in 2013 following Morrisons' successful 2011 acquisition of Kiddicare, the fourth-largest supermarket in the UK. Haatch’s mission is to support entrepreneurs with entrepreneur & operator-led cheques. By 2018, following the sale of Elevaate, a B2B SaaS company where I was part of the founding team, we launched our first EIS Fund focused on seed-stage technology companies and, for the first time, enabled investors to invest alongside ourselves in the next generation of digital entrepreneurs. In 2021, we launched our first SEIS Fund, which focuses on pre-seed technology companies. In 2022, we announced a £10m investment from British Business Investments, a subsidiary of British Business Bank. Fast-forward to 2024. We're an award-winning multi-fund VC offering tax-efficient (pre-seed SEIS and seed stage EIS) Funds alongside institutional Funds. Our simple goal is to accelerate pre-seed B2B SaaS companies to their first £1m ARR and build the infrastructure to get to £10m+. Passionate about democratising venture capital, Haatch became the first SEIS Fund to launch to retail investors on Crowdcube in late 2023. With a strategic investment thesis and a strong track record, we have over 900 investors investing alongside us in B2B SaaS companies worldwide. In early 2024, we proudly announced a strategic collaboration between Haatch and D2N2 LEP. This partnership resulted in an £8m Fund to Fuel Growth in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire’s Startup Ecosystem, a testament to our commitment to strategic growth and investment. As of June 2024, our portfolio stands at over 100 active companies, 250+ investments and almost 2,500 jobs created.
Founding Team & Board Director - Acquired
2014 - 2018
A member of the founding team of Elevaate and board director from inception to eventual acquisition by Quotient Technology Inc (NYSE:QUOT) I supported the business in a strategic role focused on fundraising, legal, diligence, product and M&A. Elevaate delivered over 250x return to early investors on exit in 2018.
Ecommerce Lead, Morrisons.com
2011 - 2013
Post Kiddicare acquisition I moved into a multi-channel, multi-brand role and was responsible for major innovation for both the Morrisons and Kiddicare brands. Highlights include the design, build and implementation of Browse & Order points into the baby aisle of Morrisons stores enabling 10m weekly customers to order an extended range at their local Morrisons store. The rollout of 10 large format baby stores in the former Best Buy retail units which included technology experiences such as electronic shelf edge labels on 4,500 SKUs per store and mobile wi-fi triangulation. I also led the SaaS integration for our first extended site, Morrisons Cellar, transforming all Kiddicare technology providers into a multi-site SaaS implementation.
Ecommerce and ECRM Lead - Acquired
2009 - 2011
I ran eCommerce technology for the UK's fastest-growing and largest independent baby store which was acquired by Morrsions in 2011. During my time at Kiddicare, I delivered groundbreaking technology projects which resulted in over 45 industry awards and first-of-its-kind customer experiences that today consumers take for granted. Projects I led included a 9-month IBM Commerce Version 7 extended site upgrade enabling the Kiddicare platform to support multi-site, multi-country & and multi-vertical, the design, build, integration and deployment of Kiddicare Kiosks, the implementation and launch of a state-of-the-art ECRM platform enabling the business to deliver the right message at the right time, the first iOS mobile commerce app which was installed on over 100,000 devices and landed a number of other technologies covering Personalisation, Loyalty, In Store & Mobile.