Airwallex

Last updated
Airwallex
Company type Private company
Industry Financial services, technology, fintech
Founded2015 in Melbourne, Australia
FoundersJack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, Ki-lok Wong
Headquarters
Singapore [1]
Areas served
130 countries [2]
ServicesPayment processing, forex, debit cards, banking services
Total equity US$5.5 billion (2022)
Number of employees
1,400 (2022)
Website airwallex.com

Airwallex is a multinational financial technology company offering financial services and software as a service (SaaS). Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia [3] and currently based in Singapore, [1] the company is a financial technology platform providing cross-border payments and financial services to businesses through a proprietary banking network and its API. [4] [5] It also provides services and products such as business accounts, expense cards, and payroll, [6] among others. [7] It was Australia's third technology unicorn company overall. [8] With a valuation of US$5.5 billion, as of 2022, the company processed $50 billion in annualized transactions. [9]

Contents

History

Founding and growth (2015–2018)

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 finding cross-border payments for imports to be costly and time-consuming for a small company. [5] Zhang was involved in designing the digital forex trading platforms for the National Australia Bank (NAB) and Australia 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 the University 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 as chief 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 a closed beta trial stage in 2015. [12] The company built a proprietary network with banks, such as Standard Chartered, DBS Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, to handle local transactions. [5] ANZ began providing transactional services to Airwallex in 2017, [13] with both MasterCard's Send platform and Tencent's WeRemit service powered by Airwallex. [14] In 2018, Airwallex moved its headquarters from Melbourne to Hong Kong [5] and turned down a US$1 billion acquisition bid by Stripe. [13] Airwallex closed the "second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history" in July 2018, netting $80 million. [15]

International expansion (2019–2020)

After a round of funding in March 2019 brought in $100 million from investors such as DST Global, Sequoia Capital, and Hillhouse Capital, [5] Airwallex reached a valuation of US$1 billion, [16] and became the "quickest company in Australia to reach unicorn status," [17] as well as Australia's third technology unicorn overall. [8] Press reported in February 2020 that instead of focusing largely on forex transfers, Airwallex was aiming to become a "neobank" akin to Salesforce, 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] after Hong Kong's High Court dismissed suspicions [17] by the Hong Kong Police Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance [17] that two former Airwallex clients had used Airwallex for money laundering. [17] [22]

Recent developments (2021-2024)

In May 2021, Airwallex received a license in the Netherlands, 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 with Visa 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 after PayPal. [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]

Products and services

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, with machine learning [5] in its SaaS products "[enabling] customers to... send money through local and international clearing networks" in around 130 countries. [2] Beyond forex services, other services include online payments acceptance, bank accounts, borderless cards, and a suite of application 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 as Navan, Qantas, SHEIN, [9] HubSpot, GOAT, [30] Saturday Club, [43] and Brex. Others in Australia and New Zealand have included Culture Kings, Kogan, Freelancer.com, and Camilla, [34] while Israeli firms include PAPAYA Global and OurCrowd. [9]

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References

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  2. 1 2 "Coffee cup dilemma leads to Australia's latest $1b tech unicorn", Cara Waters (26 Mar 2019), Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  3. ↑ "Airwallex aims to upend global payments system", Henny Sender (7 July 2020), Financial Times . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  4. ↑ "Airwallex and Plaid partner on payments". Finextra Research. 2022-12-08. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Fintech unicorn rewrites forex rules to snag big bank profits", Michelle Chan (7 June 2019), Nikkei Asia . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  6. 1 2 "In a tough market, Airwallex raises a second $100m Series e extension". 11 October 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "How a career break and coffee turned into a $3.4b business", Yolanda Redrup (26 March 2021), Australian Financial Review . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Airwallex Becomes Australia's Third Tech Unicorn", 26 March 2019, Bloomberg Daybreak . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Fintech Airwallex opens Israel office to expand footprint in Middle East" . Retrieved 2024-04-05.
  10. ↑ "The Journey of Four Chinese Students Who Founded Australia's Newest Tech Unicorn", Nidhi Singh (26 March 2019), Entrepreneur . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  11. 1 2 "How a coffee shop business turned into Australia's fastest-growing $1 billion start-up", Karen Gilchrist (29 July 2019), CNBC . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  12. ↑ Russell, John (8 July 2016). "Asia Pacific cross-border payment startup Airwallex lands $3M". www.techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  13. 1 2 "Payments 'unicorn' Airwallex knocked back $1b offer from Stripe", Charlotte Grieve (26 April 2021), Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
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  15. ↑ Bailey, Michael. "Airwallex in the money with $108m raise". Australian Financial Review. The Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  16. ↑ "Airwallex is Australia's latest unicorn", Derek Rose (26 March 2019), News.com. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  17. 1 2 3 4 "Police freeze $26m of Aussie tech unicorn's funds after alleged fraud", Cara Waters (23 Dec 2019), Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  18. ↑ Redrup, Yolanda. "Airwallex launches 'borderless' card". Australian Financial Review. The Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  19. 1 2 "'Denied': NAB, Citi pulled banking services from fintech unicorn Airwallex over risk fears", Charlotte Grieve (14 April 2021), Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  20. ↑ "Airwallex banks with ANZ, despite NAB and Citi rejection", Charlotte Grieve (15 April 2021), Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  21. ↑ Waters, Cara. "Atlassian co-founder backs Airwallex as it raises another $56m". www.smh.com.au. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
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  23. ↑ "Airwallex secures EMI licence from the Dutch Central Bank". www.thepaypers.com. The Paypers. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
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  29. ↑ "Airwallex closes Series E with USD 100 mln raise". thepaypers.com. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
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  37. ↑ "Tencent-backed Airwallex's Singapore unit gets fresh $165m".
  38. ↑ "Airwallex rolls out global payments in Canada".
  39. ↑ Browne, Ryan (2023-10-19). "As U.S.-China tensions rumble on, fintech unicorn Airwallex pushes into Latin America with Mexico deal". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
  40. ↑ Browne, Ryan (15 Aug 2024). "Tencent-backed Airwallex hits $500 million annualized sales, aims to get IPO-ready by 2026". CNBC.
  41. 1 2 ""Airwallex for Startups" launches in Hong Kong to help local businesses streamline operations". airwallex.com. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 2024-05-31.
  42. ↑ Webber, Daniel. "Airwallex: Building A Cross-Border Payments Infrastructure For Global Business". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  43. ↑ Lim, Clay (10 July 2023). "Global payments firm Airwallex aims to double S'pore headcount by year end". The Straits Times.
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