Sam Hayes
Founder of TangoTrade
Sam Hayes
Founder of TangoTrade
San Francisco Bay Area
Overview
Work Experience
President & Co-Founder
2018 - Current
TangoTrade provides trade finance and payment tools for small and medium sized businesses to take advantage of global markets, while reducing their costs and risks. With TangoTrade's Payment Assurance, businesses can import with confidence and access financing. And now platforms that serve US importers -- including freight forwarders and B2B marketplaces -- can integrate Payment Assurance for the benefit of all parties.
President
2014
Advise and invest in technology companies with a focus on marketplace and FinTech segments including Trovapage, Assembled Brands, Finalis, Armor Payments (Payoneer), Nex3, Kachinga, Liquidity Collective, HiGlobe and Astrella. Securities are offered through Finalis Securities LLC Member FINRA/SIPC. InsideRound Financial Corporation and Finalis Securities LLC are separate, unaffiliated entities.
GM Arcade & Executive Vice President
2016 - 2018
Assembled Brands is a modern holding company transforming brands through credit financing and creative resources that lower operating costs and increase revenue. $100MM Fund with Oaktree. Growing consumer brands leverage a purpose-built platform to more efficiently run their business and empower their professionals all while unlocking the capital and credit we offer.
Senior Advisor & Shareholder of Armor Payments (now part of Payoneer)
2014 - 2018
Advisor to Armor Payments with focus on financing, growth strategies and partnerships. Key role in defining opportunity of online escrow functionality for financial providers including marketplaces and crowd platforms. Positioned company marketing as Escrow-as-a-Service (EaaS) to early adopters at venues such as PYMNT's Innovation Project 2015. Successful sale to Payoneer in March 2016 (https://escrow.payoneer.com/blog/armor-payments-joins-payoneer-family-adds-escrow-to-payoneer-global-payment-solutions) https://escrow.payoneer.com/blog/advisoryboard
Founding Team & Senior Vice President, Broker Network & Content
2013 - 2014
Responsible for broker dealer network, site content and partnerships for this NASDAQ controlled broker dealer resulting from acquisition of SharesPost's Alternative Trading System (ATS) for unregistered private company stock. In 2019 platform drove $4.8 B in transactions.
Co-Founder, Founding COO & EVP
2008 - 2014
Conceptualized in late 2008 and launched early 2009, SharesPost became the largest and most active platform for buying and selling private company shares within its first two weeks of going live. Responsible for all elements of 1.0 product delivery (initial scrum leader) to marketing (agency selection, media) to financing (boot strapped, angel & venture funded) to initial customers (broker dealer representatives) to partners (escrow services, research and data distribution) to fund management (backoffice, legal). Resulted in $1B+ in transactions, 120K+ members and 80,000 research reports downloaded and rapid profitability. Key partnerships conceived, closed and successfully managed included Bloomberg, Business Insider, US Bank, Schwartz Communications and VCExperts. Resulted in acquisition of Alternative Trading System (ATS) platform by NASDAQ (see above).
Head of Java Corporate Development
2003 - 2008
Led Sun's acquisitions and venture investments for the Java, client and embedded software, mobile, smart card and telecommunications sectors. Key roles on open source strategy and inbound/outbound licensing new technologies. Leadership role in Shareholder Value Team's successful efforts to meet $500MM goal resulting in nomination for Leadership Award. Drove new appliance product (HW+SW+Services) launch and growth through channel partners.
Director, Marketing & Business Development
2001 - 2003
Productized pioneering video-streaming technology from a former U.S. Naval Academy professor. Defined market requirements and drove outbound licensing efforts. Key role in raising $5MM+ of venture capital. Resulted in acquisition by market leader e-media (led by former CEO of CNBC) which subsequently was acquired by Akamai.
Director of Business Development
1999 - 2001
First business and corporate development group hire for this online startup financed by Kleiner Perkins and Amazon.com. Negotiated online advertising deals and created cost of customer acquisition methodology. Innovative business model with no inventory costs and per transaction fee for highly regulated vertical. Innovative deal structures with Google's initial adwords product , Microsoft's MSN, NYTimes and WineSpectator.com. Resulting merger of equals (WineShopper + Wine.com) valued at $275MM.
Business Affairs
1998 - 1999
Key role in launching ClassifiedsPlus, AOL's online classifieds product in partnership with newspaper consortium now Classified Ventures (Tribune, KnightRidder, Washington Post). Built vertical property ad valuations, created deal term sheets per market, initiated and negotiated deal points. Resulted in 4 year $100MM partnership in classifieds marketplace.
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