Katie Fernquest

WeLaunch is a curated digital ecosystem: one trusted place where founders find everything they need to start, scale, hire and raise. Accountants, lawyers, designers, developers, marketers, HR support, new hires and investors. Every provider is vetted. Founders today are pulled across freelance sites, networks, agencies and AI tools. Help is everywhere, but trusted help is hard to find. And you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s where we’re different. A founder tells Winnie, our AI, what they need in plain English. Winnie turns it into a clear brief and flags what they haven’t thought of yet, like the contract they need before hiring a developer. Then real people take over. We introduce them to vetted providers who fit their stage, budget and goals, and every relationship is managed in one Founder Dashboard. We support businesses from bootstrapped to Series A and beyond. Founders can pick single services or use a Biz Stack™, a tailored bundle for their stage. And it’s free for founders. We help SMEs and service providers too. Our Commercial Command Centre becomes their sales engine, sending them qualified founders who are ready to buy, with no cold outreach. Human-focused, technology-enabled. Built in Cardiff, soft launching December 2026, with a UK-wide launch in 2027.

I’ll be honest. WeLaunch could have grown and launched faster. There were quicker, cheaper options outside Wales. I said no. It mattered to me that WeLaunch was Welsh-rooted from day one, not just based here, but built here, by people from here, because if I’m building something to open doors for founders, I should be opening doors in my own back garden first. So every key role on the team is Welsh talent. Our developer is building the platform here in Wales. Our marketer is shaping how we tell our story and our Non-Executive Director, Blanche Sainsbury, founder of the Child of Wales Awards and a tireless advocate for founders and SMEs across South Wales, brings the experience and network to help us grow the right way. Together, we’ve taken WeLaunch from an idea to a platform launching this December, with two investment offers secured before the MVP was even built. This is just the start. As WeLaunch grows, so will the opportunities we create in South Wales. More jobs, more contracts for local providers, and more reasons for talented people to build their careers here, not leave to find them. We’re a small team with a big belief: Wales doesn’t need to look elsewhere for great talent. It’s already here.

I left education and walked into the world of work at 15. Academics were never my forte, but this made sense later in life when I was diagnosed with dyslexia, but the moment I was in a job, I was a total sponge. Learning, doing, getting my hands dirty that’s where I thrived. For the first time, I could actually see the career ladder in front of me, and I could see myself climbing it. Ten years ago, I fell into recruitment, and everything clicked. My strengths in sales and relationships came alive, and I loved it. It is what also introduced me to founder-led businesses. I worked side by side with founders, helping them make their key hires, from the first feet on the ground to the C-suite, from Series A all the way to exit. I had a front-row seat to what worked and what didn’t and like any founder, I started seeing the gaps I wanted to fill. The biggest one was founders didn’t fail for lack of ideas they struggled because they couldn’t find the right people at the right time, and the best support went to those who already knew who to ask. I’m not technically skilled, I’m not a developer but that hasn’t stopped me building a tech business, because what I am brilliant at is finding the right people for the right jobs and connecting them. That’s exactly what WeLaunch does, at scale. Every step of my journey, from 15 years old to today, has led here. That’s why I truly believe WeLaunch will succeed.