Australia's Airwallex sees valuation hit $2.6b

The latest tranche, worth $100 million, was led by Greenoaks Capital and featured Grok Ventures, Skip Capital, the VC division of ANZ Bank, and other existing investors. Grok and Skip are investment firms established by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, respectively, founders of Atlassian.

Airwallex received an initial Series D tranche of $160 million in April 2020 led by the VC divisions of ANZ Bank and Salesforce. DST Global, Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital China, Hillhouse Capital, and Horizons Ventures also participated. An additional $40 million came last September from undisclosed sources.

The company closed its Series C at $100 million in 2019 with DST Global taking the lead. At the time, Airwallex was valued above $1 billion. Total capital raised to date is nearly $500 million. Other backers include Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital China, Mastercard, Square Peg Capital, Gobi Partners, and BCA. 

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.

In 2020, the company broadened its product offering with the addition of multi-currency debit cards provided in conjunction with Visa, a bank feed integration service with Xero, a rewards program, and online payment acceptance capabilities, a statement said. Meanwhile, it achieved triple-digit revenue growth across the e-commerce, digital and technology, and logistics customer sentiments.

Announcing the second tranche of the Series D last September, Airwallex claimed its global customer base had grown 50% year-to-date and overall revenue rose 100% quarter-on-quarter through the third quarter.

International expansion remains a priority and the new funding will be used to support these efforts, as well as to continue product and engineering innovation. The company has more than 600 employees across 12 offices, and it is currently looking to fill over 500 roles. Building on a strong presence in Asia Pacific and Western Europe, US market entry was scheduled for early 2021.

“We believe Airwallex is building a powerful global payments business, with a rich product suite that helps companies simplify their financial infrastructure as they scale globally. From its origins in Australia, Airwallex chose to build global products from day one, and has developed a deep understanding of emerging payment technologies,” said Patrick Backhouse, a partner at Greenoaks.

Airwallex was established in 2015 by Jack Zhang and Max Li, friends with a background in engineering and banking who opened a café in Melbourne together and recognized first-hand the impact of high foreign exchange and banking costs on small businesses. Lucy Liu and Xijing Dai, two friends from the University of Melbourne, filled out the founding team.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Expansion
• Technology
• Financials
• Australia
• Greenoaks Capital
• Growth capital
• Fintech
• Financial Services