Airwallex adds $100m to Series E at $5.5b valuation
Hong Kong-based cross-border payments provider Airwallex has received a $100 million Series E extension led by Lone Pine Capital at a valuation of $5.5 billion.
Sequoia Capital China and 1835i Ventures, the VC unit of Australia’s ANZ, also participated. It comes two months after a $200 million Series E, also led by Lone Pine, that valued the company at $4 billion. A $300 million Series D closed in March at a valuation of $2.6 billion. About $800 million has been raised to date.
The latest investment follows a strong third-quarter performance, with Airwallex recording a 165% year-on-year increase in revenue. Annualized revenue exceeded $100 million. The company has also made more than 200 new hires as it seeks to strengthen its global footprint. As of September, there were 1,000 staff across 20 locations.
In recent months, Airwallex has progressed an expansion agenda across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, while building on early momentum in the US. The company launched its virtual employee cards in Hong Kong and the UK, marked its entry into Southeast Asia with licenses in Singapore and Malaysia, and continued to onboard new global customers.
“Our record performance last quarter demonstrates the tremendous demand from customers who are seeking better solutions to operate their businesses,” Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, said in a statement.
“As we approach our sixth anniversary, we want to continue to connect entrepreneurs, business builders, and makers with opportunities in every corner of the world. This new capital injection will allow us to do just that, fuelling M&A opportunities that will accelerate our global expansion plans, pursuing our mission to empower businesses to grow without borders.”
Zhang established Airwallex in Australia in 2015 fellow students Max Li, Lucy Liu, and Xijing Dai. The idea was initially to solve pain points around cross-border money transfers they experienced as individuals. Gobi Partners, the company’s first institutional investor which achieved a 100x return on its exit earlier this year, advised a switch to a B2B model.
The company has facilitated more than $20 billion in cross-border transactions to date via a platform that can process thousands of transactions per second. Clients include Tencent, JD.com, Ctrip, and MasterCard.
Earlier this year, the company’s founders also launched a VC fund under the name Capital 49 that will seek $200 million to build out an ecosystem of companies synergistic to Airwallex.
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