Australia's Airwallex achieves unicorn status

Existing investors Sequoia Capital China, Tencent Holdings, Hillhouse Capital, Gobi Partners, Horizons Ventures and Square Peg Capital, all re-upped in the round. It brings the company’s total capital raised to date to more than $200 million.

“The growing e-commerce industry needs a technology-focused payments network that is reliable, cost-effective and provides data transparency,” Tom Stafford, a managing partner at DST, said in a statement. “Airwallex has built such a network.”

Founded in 2015, Airwallex offers end-to-end services for making programmatic cross-border enterprise payments on a global scale. Clients including JD.com, Tencent, Ctrip, and MasterCard can instantly create accounts using local bank details, access interbank exchange rates, and transfer money through local and international clearing networks to more than 130 countries.

The company raised an $80 million Series B last year with support from Tencent, Sequoia, Hillhouse, Horizons, Square Peg, and Central Capital Ventura. Previous investors also include Gravity Venture Capital and Huashan Capital. It will use the capital from the latest round to expand its international collection and payment product offering and support global expansion.

Later-stage venture funding in Australia has experienced momentum in recent years as homegrown technology companies begin to play higher profile roles in a local business culture traditionally dominated by primary industries. Other Australian start-ups to have claimed unicorn status include Atlassian, Aconex, and Canva, which achieved the milestone last year.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Financials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Australia
• Financial Services
• Sequoia Capital
• Tencent
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Gobi Partners
• Square Peg Capital