YardOps and Haatch have announced that Haatch, through its SEIS fund and British Business Bank-backed fund, alongside York Angels, has invested in YardOps at a valuation of £2.5 million; the exact investment size was not disclosed but is understood to be around £500,000. It gives a UK-built yard management platform fresh capital to compete against US-designed software, at a moment when FMCG operators are actively looking to close efficiency gaps in manual yard processes. 

YardOps is a Hull-based logistics technology platform launched as a standalone product in 2025, led by co-founders Jim Wardlaw, Matt Gibson, John Polling and Matt Weldon, offering yard management software covering booking, gatehouse, shunter coordination, dock management and trailer maintenance.

Haatch is an early-stage venture capital firm investing through an SEIS fund and a British Business Bank-backed fund, targeting UK technology businesses at seed stage.

York Angels is a York-based angel investor network providing seed capital to early-stage startups, working alongside institutional co-investors on funding rounds.

The round funds product development, sales and marketing, and senior team growth, including the recent appointment of Martin Dougherty, previously of Wincanton and DHL, as commercial director, adding logistics operator credibility to the leadership team.

YardOps addresses a gap most existing yard management software leaves open. Existing platforms are largely built for the US market, where sites are typically larger, leaving UK and EU operators reliant on manual processes for yard logistics despite operating some of the world's most developed FMCG supply chains.

The investment lands as UK logistics operators face sustained pressure to cut costs and emissions through better asset utilisation. YardOps positions its software around reducing vehicle turnaround times, which cuts the number of leased vehicles needed on site, alongside live traffic data for managing yard arrivals and departures.

For FMCG, manufacturing and logistics operators, the backing signals growing investor confidence that yard operations, long treated as a low-tech afterthought behind warehouse and transport systems, represent a distinct efficiency lever still largely unexploited across UK sites.

Source: BusinessCloud