Jobs created as Peterborough digital newcomer secures £300,000 backing from entrepreneurs

The two-year-old Avion has grown its engineering team after securing a financial vote of confidence from Haatch Ventures set up by investors Scott Weavers-Wright and Fred Sonya.

Haatch Ventures has put £300,000 into Avion, a digital platform that provides large companies with more agile and effective ways to plan and build software, which has allowed it to grow its team from two to 10 people and that also values the company at £1.8 million.

Created by Tim Ramage and James Sear, who both worked previously as senior software engineers at local digital agency MMT in Uppingham, Avion already counts big names such as Panasonic, EY, PWC and Mercedes-Benz, among its clients.

In a statement, the duo said: “We are absolutely delighted and thrilled to be part of the Haatch family of portfolio companies and look forward to engaging with the partners to leverage every piece of advice and help we can grab.

“We approached Haatch after a recommendation and it’s exciting to find a set of individuals who have previously sold their technology businesses for $200 million plus and understand how to scale fast growing digital solutions while remaining in the detail.”

Mr Weavers-Wright, who was the former chief executive of Kiddicare.com - the internet arm of Peterborough-based baby care supplier Kiddicare - and set up Haatch to invest in digital start-ups, said: “This is our third investment in Stamford and Peterborough.

“We are proud to support the Stamford/Peterborough digital community and we continue to see phenomenal growth in digital technology business post Covid within the region/UK and beyond.”

Its investments so far include Elevaate, of Peterborough in 2014, which has 50 plus staff, and Eleanor, of Stamford, in 2019 which created more than 10 jobs.

He added: “Avion was already achieving 100% month on month growth prior to the pandemic and is set to continue exponentially.

“Haatch Ventures will take a board seat to help guide the business through the next stages of growth and recruitment.”

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