Cape gears up for New Year launch with appointment of seasoned Fintech exec Gerry Hoare as NED

Cape, the first BNPL Business Credit Card, has today announced the appointment of Gerry Hoare as its first Non-Executive Director, effective immediately, as the fast growing fintech continues to strengthen its senior leadership team in line with future growth plans.

Gerry will be joining Cape from Satago where he has been advising and building out their innovative 3-in-1 cash management platform that provides risk analysis, automated credit control and a single invoice finance solution. Gerry will be bringing over 30 years of experience in banking, asset based lending and building Alternative Finance products from the ground up.

Additionally, Gerry’s prior experiences that will benefit Cape moving forward include:

• Capital-On-Tap – raised their first major Senior debt facility, whilst also building out 3 of their financial products from the ground up over an 18 month period, one of which is their Business Credit Card offering which has scaled to over 100,000 business accounts.

• Proportunity – sourced, structured and secured their first external institutional debt provider, to enable them to begin lending.

• Sonovate – sourced, structured and secured their warehouse facility with M&G Investments.

Founded only 8 weeks ago, Cape is initially planning to tackle the $103 billion dollar working capital gap in Australia with a Founding team heralding from Capital On Tap, PayPal, Funding Circle, Funding Options & 11:FS that have already unlocked Billions of dollars in working capital for tens of thousands of Small Business owners across Europe.

Gerry Hoare, Non-Executive Director, commented: “I am excited to be joining Cape right from day dot. I’ve been impressed by the company’s innovative vision towards working capital solutions, combined with a clear understanding of how to reduce the burden of financial administration surrounding the utilisation of these products by the business owners they’re meant to support. I’ve always been passionate about working for companies who are solving major pain points for businesses. Cape is facilitating access to capital and financial services in a way that has never been done before, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best – building their business. Our first product, a Business Credit Card for digital business owners, is on track to revolutionise the Australian SME market in 2021.” said Hoare. “I’m excited to lead the Capital Markets and Credit functions and to join the stellar leadership team.”

Ryan Edwards-Pritchard, CEO & Co-Founder, Cape, commented:

“From leading international expansion launches for the likes of GE, to building Invoice Finance products from scratch for the likes of Siemen’s and Investec, Gerry’s financial leadership and execution skills at an enterprise level are unquestionable and are equally well matched by his more recent success of building early stage fintech startups.”

“As we prepare to launch it’s crucial our senior leadership team has a blend of forward-thinking creativity and experience. Gerry’s one of the most well respected veterans in the financial world, bringing an unparalleled history of building and scaling alternative finance products from the ground up to Cape. His knowledge will prove invaluable as we embark on our mission to re-imagine the financial Operating System for SME’s with the launch of our MVP in early 2021.”