| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Financial services,technology,fintech |
| Founded | 2015 inMelbourne, Australia |
| Founders | Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, Ki-lok Wong |
| Headquarters | |
Areas served | 130 countries[2] |
| Services | Payment processing,forex,debit cards, banking services |
| Total equity | US$5.5 billion (2022) |
Number of employees | 1,400 (2022) |
| Website | airwallex |
Airwallex is a multinationalfinancial technology company offeringfinancial services andsoftware as a service (SaaS). Founded in 2015 inMelbourne, Australia[3] and currently based inSingapore,[1] the company is a financial technology platform providingcross-border payments and financial services to businesses through a proprietary banking network and itsAPI.[4][5] It also provides services and products such as business accounts, expense cards, and payroll,[6] among others.[7] It was Australia's thirdtechnologyunicorn company overall.[8] With a valuation of US$5.5 billion, as of 2022, the company processed $50 billion in annualized transactions.[9]
Airwallex was created in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia by five co-founders. At the time, software engineer Jack Zhang and architect Max Li had invested in a coffee shop in Melbourne, and were findingcross-border payments for imports to be costly and time-consuming for a small company.[5] Zhang was involved in designing the digitalforex trading platforms for theNational Australia Bank (NAB) andAustralia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ),[10] and was inspired to provide a simple, cheaper service to small and midsize businesses.[5] Zhang and Li partnered with Lucy Liu and Xijing Dai, fellow alumni from theUniversity of Melbourne, as well as Ki-Lok Wong. With the founders investing a combined $1 million,[11] roles included Zhang as CEO,[7] Liu as president,[5] Li as head of design, Dai aschief technology officer, and Wong as principal architect.[7]
The Airwallex platform was developed to lower consumer costs on foreign exchange rates,[11] and was launched in aclosed beta trial stage in 2015.[12] The company built a proprietary network with banks, such asStandard Chartered,DBS Bank and theIndustrial and Commercial Bank of China, to handle local transactions.[5]ANZ began providing transactional services to Airwallex in 2017,[13] with bothMasterCard's Send platform andTencent's WeRemit service powered by Airwallex.[14] In 2018, Airwallex moved its headquarters from Melbourne toHong Kong[5] and turned down a US$1 billion acquisition bid byStripe.[13] Airwallex closed the "second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history" in July 2018, netting $80 million.[15]
After a round of funding in March 2019 brought in $100 million from investors such asDST Global,Sequoia Capital, andHillhouse Capital,[5] Airwallex reached a valuation of US$1 billion,[16] and became the "quickest company in Australia to reachunicorn status,"[17] as well as Australia's third technology unicorn overall.[8] Press reported in February 2020 that instead of focusing largely onforex transfers, Airwallex was aiming to become a "neobank" akin toSalesforce, specifically the "AWS of financial services."[18] In 2020,NAB was providing payroll and rental payment services to Airwallex.[19] The NAB had previously cancelled transactional banking services for Airwallex customers in 2018.[19][20] In 2021, Hong Kong unfroze $18.2 million in funds and released them to Airwallex[21] afterHong Kong's High Court dismissed suspicions[17] by theHong Kong Police Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance[17] that two former Airwallex clients had used Airwallex for money laundering.[17][22]
In May 2021, Airwallex received a license in theNetherlands, giving them access to the European market.[23] Airwallex started operations in the US in August,[24] and secured a license in Malaysia in September 2021.[25] In November 2021, Airwallex raised an additional US$100 million, reaching a new valuation of $5.5 billion and bringing the total funds raised since 2015 to $802 million.[26] In late 2021 it had 1000 employees in 19 locations.[27] The company processed $20 billion at an annualized volume in 2021,[28][29] and by 2022, that had increased to $50 billion processed in annualized transactions.[30] Airwallex released a debit card withVisa in Hong Kong in 2021,[31] followed by a release in the U.S. in 2022.[32] Airwallex launched in Singapore in early 2022.[33] In Oct. 2022, Airwallex raised another US$100 million as part of its Series E funding round, sustaining its estimated valuation of US$5.5 bln.[6]CRN valued it at US$5.6 billion in Oct. 2022.[34]
In Mar. 2023,[35] Airwallex secured a third-party payment license in China through the acquisition of Guangzhou Shangwutong Network Technology, becoming only the second foreign company to have secured the license afterPayPal.[36] As of Aug. 2023, key markets included Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and Hong Kong. Also in 2023, Airwallex launched into Israel[37] and Canada.[38] In October 2023, Airwallex acquired a Mexico-based payments company, MexPago. The deal was made to help the firm expand its footprint in Latin America.[39] Currently based in Singapore,[1] Airwallex has a total of 20 locations[9] and most recently had 1400 employees.[34]
In 2024, Airwallex achieved an annual revenue run rate of $500 million.[40]
Airwallex states its financial platform for businesses has features related to payments, treasury, spend management, and embedded finance.[41]
Airwallex uses a proprietary banking network to handle local transactions, withmachine learning[5] in itsSaaS products "[enabling] customers to... send money through local and international clearing networks" in around 130 countries.[2] Beyondforex services, other services includeonline payments acceptance, bank accounts,borderless cards, and a suite ofapplication programming interfaces (APIs).[7][42]
According to the company, as of 2023 its software infrastructure is used by 100,000 businesses[41] including brands such asNavan,Qantas,SHEIN,[9]HubSpot,GOAT,[30] Saturday Club,[43] andBrex. Others in Australia and New Zealand have includedCulture Kings,Kogan,Freelancer.com, andCamilla,[34] while Israeli firms includePAPAYA Global andOurCrowd.[9]