Australia's Airwallex upsizes Series D to $200m
Australian international payments technology provider Airwallex has raised an additional $40 million in Series D funding from existing investors, bringing the round to $200 million.
The company did not specify which investors re-upped. It received an initial tranche of $160 million in April led by the VC divisions of ANZ Bank and Salesforce. DST Global, Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital China, Hillhouse Capital, and Horizons Ventures also participated. It brings total equity funding to date to about $400 million, including a $100 million Series C last year led by DST at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
The fresh capital will enable Airwallex to further build out its product suite, strengthen an existing footprint in Asia Pacific and Western Europe, and to enter new markets in Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa. The company is also laying the groundwork for US entry in early 2021. It also expects to hire more than 100 additional staff globally. The team is currently 140-strong.
Airwallex helps enterprise customers execute cross-border payments at scale by connecting with third-party websites and processing transactions using instant inter-bank exchanges. Its platform can process thousands of transactions per second and provide a cost-effective alternative to existing payment networks for businesses looking to automate and expand their international payment workflows. Clients include Tencent, JD.com, Ctrip, and MasterCard.
The company claims to have thrived during 2020, with the global customer base growing by 50% and net revenue increasing 100% quarter-on-quarter during the third quarter. The performance was driven in particular by the e-commerce, technology, and logistics sectors. New product rollouts during the year have included a rewards program, a bank feed integration service, and a virtual multi-currency debit card in partnership with Visa.
“A major shift in the way businesses operate from offline to online is something Airwallex predicted from our inception. However, 2020 has fast-tracked this transition in a way no one could have foreseen. Businesses are now racing to embrace digital transformation at an unprecedented rate,” Jack Zhang, CEO and co-founder of Airwallex, said in a statement. “We are more certain than ever that the digital economy is going to be the center of the world’s economic structure.”
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