Former PayPal and Braintree exec, Tyson Hackwood joins Cloudfloat
Leading Australian business cash flow specialist Cloudfloat, has announced the appointment of former PayPal executive Tyson Hackwood as Chief Customer Officer, as the emerging B2B fintech looks to rapidly scale its payments solution business locally and internationally over the coming 12 months.
Tyson has spent over 13 years in the digital commerce and payments industry, including heading up Acquisition and Engagement teams for PayPal Australia and which he left to Braintree and was employee #1 in Asia Pacific. As General Manager for APAC, he grew the team to over 40 employees and the customer base from zero to over 10,000, signing on some of Australia’s largest digital commerce businesses including Telstra, Stan, Temple & Webster, Bellroy and The Good Guys. During his time at Braintree they were acquired by PayPal, and he continued his role and to grow the business, in APAC, based out of Singapore.
Most recently he has been working within Australian start up and scale ups as they go through their planning and development of their go to market plans, content strategies, payments strategy and onboarding new team members.
Founder and CEO of Cloudfloat, Aleem Habibullah said Tyson’s experience is a great addition to Cloudfloat’s executive team: “We’re thrilled to have Tyson join Cloudfloat. He brings an infectious energy and passion for innovation in the payments space, especially for technology that supports SMEs and growth industries, which aligns perfectly with Cloudfloat’s mission and values.”
Cloudfloat serves an under-served part of the community, providing small to medium enterprises (SMEs) easy to access hassle-free cash flow at the time of paying for any business transaction. The Cloudfloat platform allows its customers to pay for goods and services on time, every time, instead of delaying the payment. The customer can then make fortnightly repayments with up to 90 day terms.
Suppliers can offer their business customers flexible payment terms without any risk, solving cash flow challenges and allowing businesses to grow.
As financial pressure on businesses has increased since interest rates began to rise in May 2022, so has demand for Cloudfloat, a cash flow solution that eases the burden on business costs. Demand for payment requests on the platform has increased by 513% (5 times) from the month of Jan 2022 to Jan 2023, with the average value of a transaction going up from $2,500 in Jan 2022 to $3,500 in 2023.
The number of customers has doubled since Jan 2022, going from just under 600 to 1200 in Jan 2023 (each customer makes multiple transactions) with manufacturing, digital services, retail and food service industries making up the largest portion of customer share.
Aleem continued, “Generally, businesses are doing it tough right now and business credit is only going to tighten as the RBA continues to hike interest rates. That means cash flow will only get harder for SMEs to access. For traditional players, margins are going to shrink and with that more financial tightening spreading to lenders with thin margins and who have sacrificed credit quality for the sake of growth.
“I see Cloudfloat as an organisation that has looked at the system and said ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’ and then built a better service. Payments should not be seen as a cost to the business, which they most often are, they should be seen as a way to generate revenue”, said Tyson Hackwood, Chief Customer Officer, Cloudfloat.
“Cloudfloat offers fast, nimble access to cash flow. I’m excited to work with an innovative platform offering a ‘payments as a service’ style solution to power organisations that traditionally wouldn’t be able to access cashflow. I have a keen interest in working with disruptors out there, growth industries, and any industries trying to rebuild themselves after the Covid pandemic, like food and beverage. We’re the solution for them”, said Hackwood.
