A London-based technology company founded by a mother-and-son team has secured £335,000 in venture capital funding to help food and beverage businesses manage product recalls, supply chain disruptions and other operational crises more effectively.

Friday4:30, an incident management platform created by Emma and Jack Sykes, has received backing from venture capital firm Haatch as it prepares to scale operations and onboard its first customers.

The software is designed to provide a structured framework for managing incidents from initial alert through to resolution, replacing processes that are often handled through spreadsheets, email chains and manual procedures.

The company takes its name from what founder Emma Sykes describes as the industry’s recurring “Friday 4.30 moment” — the point at which an unexpected problem emerges late in the day and organisations scramble to coordinate a response.

Sykes, who has spent years advising food manufacturers and brands on incident response, said the platform was developed to capture the structured processes she had built throughout her career.

“Every incident needs to be handled systematically,” she said. “The businesses that navigate crises most successfully are not necessarily those with the largest teams, but those that are best prepared.”

Her son Jack, who developed the business alongside running his own venture while studying at the University of Edinburgh, said advances in technology had made it possible to transform specialist expertise into a scalable software platform.

The system is intended to centralise communication, coordinate stakeholders and preserve institutional knowledge, reducing dependence on individual employees during high-pressure situations.

The investment will support the company’s commercial launch and further product development.

Charlie Weavers-Wright, principal seed investor at Haatch, said the business was addressing a longstanding gap in the market. “Most companies are still managing product recalls and supply chain crises through fragmented processes,” he said. “Friday4:30 is turning decades of practical expertise into software that can be accessed by a much broader range of organisations.”

Founded in 2025, the company has also assembled an advisory committee comprising specialists from the UK and US across food and drink, quality assurance, customer service and technology.

The funding comes as businesses face growing pressure to respond rapidly to operational incidents in an environment where social media and digital communications can amplify reputational risks within minutes.

For Friday4:30, the investment marks a significant step towards commercialisation as it seeks to bring structured incident management tools to a sector where preparedness is increasingly viewed as a competitive advantage.