Former HSBC finance head named CFO of Cloudscraper

Cloudscraper, which claims to be the world’s only commercial real estate exchange for buying, selling and financing, has appointed Matt Webster as its chief financial officer. He was previously head of real estate finance at HSBC.

Cloudscraper links trading opportunities, stakeholders, their advisors, and equity and debt capital into an independent and unified networked data ecosystem. In reflecting the current deal inception points among the various parties involved at the relevant stages throughout the journey of a deal, Cloudscraper has developed technology and tools to make the entire discovery and management processes substantially more efficient, simpler, and faster.

The company, which is headquartered in London with offices in Tel Aviv, Dublin and Berlin, has been in ‘stealth’ mode since its inception in 2014 and began on-boarding clients 12 months ago, attracting more than 100 global organisations with assets representing in excess of $200bn.

During its ‘stealth’, it established and collaborated with an advisory board of senior executives from global real estate organisations and a hand-picked selection of industry users to support the development and refinement of the platform.

Webster oversaw the debt book for global banking and markets for over 12 years at HSBC. Prior to HSBC, he held senior real estate roles at Hypo Real Estate, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Fitch Ratings. He is a chartered financial analyst, a former chairman of CREFC Europe and has served on a multitude of industry working groups and trade bodies.

Webster commented: “The commercial real estate industry is set to undergo massive change and Cloudscraper will lead from the front.

“To join Cloudscraper is extremely exciting.  I am astounded by the comprehensive system that has been created and this is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that will be making a huge impact going forward.  I believe my experience will bring tremendous industry insight to Cloudscraper, leading to the development of additional system enhancements on top of the core CFO responsibilities.”

Cloudscraper executive chairman and CEO, Moses Gottlieb, said: “We welcome Matthew and this huge step forward in building a world-class leadership team to help the company drive, structure and scale to penetrate the Cloudscraper platform into global markets.

“After over three years developing the technology, the company is ready for global roll-out  – now is the time to leverage the platform technology so participants stay relevant in an industry undergoing unstoppable industry dynamic change.”