Airwallex

Airwallex
Company typePrivate
IndustryFinancial services, technology, fintech
Founded2015 in Melbourne, Australia
FoundersJack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, Ki-lok Wong
Headquarters
Singapore[1]
Areas served
180 countries[2]
ServicesPayment processing, forex, debit cards, banking services
Total equityUS$6.2 billion (2025)
Number of employees
1,800 (2025)
Websiteairwallex.com

Airwallex is a multinational financial technology company[3][4] providing financial services. Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia[5] and currently headquartered in Singapore,[1] the company's platform provides global payments through its application programming interface (API) and proprietary[6][7] financial infrastructure.[8] Services and products include business accounts, expense cards, and payroll,[9] among others.[10] It expanded into investment products[11] in 2023.[12] Airwallex is Australia's third technology unicorn company overall.[13] With a valuation of US$6.2 billion in May 2025,[14] it has raised $1.2 billion in total funding.[15]

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.[7] 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),[16] and was inspired to provide a simple, cheaper service to small and midsize businesses.[7] 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,[17] roles included Zhang as CEO,[10] Liu as president,[7] Li as head of design, Dai as chief technology officer, and Wong as principal architect.[10]

The Airwallex platform was developed to lower consumer costs for cross-border payments,[17] and was launched in a closed beta trial stage in 2015.[18] 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.[7] ANZ began providing transactional services to Airwallex in 2017,[19] with both MasterCard's Send platform and Tencent's WeRemit service powered by Airwallex.[20] In 2018, Airwallex moved its headquarters from Melbourne to Hong Kong[7] and turned down a US$1 billion acquisition bid by Stripe.[19] Airwallex closed the "second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history" in July 2018, netting $80 million.[21]

International expansion (2019–2022)

After a round of funding in March 2019 brought in $100 million from investors such as DST Global, Sequoia Capital, and Hillhouse Capital,[7] Airwallex reached a valuation of US$1 billion,[22] and became the "quickest company in Australia to reach unicorn status,"[23] as well as Australia's third technology unicorn overall.[13] 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."[24] In 2020, NAB was providing payroll and rental payment services to Airwallex.[25] The NAB had previously cancelled transactional banking services for Airwallex customers in 2018.[25][26] In 2021, Hong Kong unfroze $18.2 million in funds and released them to Airwallex[27] after Hong Kong's High Court dismissed suspicions[23] by the Hong Kong Police Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance[23] that two former Airwallex clients had used Airwallex for money laundering.[23][28]

In May 2021, Airwallex received a license in the Netherlands, giving them access to the European market.[29] Airwallex started operations in the US in August,[30] and secured a license in Malaysia in September 2021.[31] 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.[32][33] After debuting a borderless card for businesses in Australia in 2020,[34] Airwallex released a version of that debit card with Visa in Hong Kong in 2021,[35] followed by a release in the U.S. in 2022.[36] Airwallex launched in Singapore in early 2022.[37] Later that year, In October 2022, Airwallex raised another US$100 million,[9] and in October 2022, CRN valued it at US$5.6 billion.[38]

Recent developments (2023-2025)

In March 2023,[39] 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.[40] In October 2023, Airwallex acquired a Mexico-based payments company, MexPago.[41] Among other markets were Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, Hong Kong, Israel,[42] and Canada.[43] In February 2024, Airwallex signed a multi-year partnership with the McLaren Formula 1 racing team, with the Airwallex logo added to McLaren's livery.[44] In May 2024, Airwallex launched a program in Australia to provide grants to local startups,[45] with the program afterwards expanded to Hong Kong[46] and Singapore.[47] By that summer 1,200 startups in Australia were part of the Airwallex for Startups program.[48]

In June 2024, Airwallex expanded into France,[49] and in August 2024, Airwallex announced an annual revenue run rate of $500 million and that it was preparing to be IPO-ready 2026.[50] Airwallex entered the New Zealand market in March 2025, and also agreed to acquire Vietnamese intermediary payment service (IPS) CTIN Pay. The company was then reported as having exceeded US$130 billion in its annual transaction volume.[51] That month, it reported $720 million in annualized revenue, a 90% increase from the year prior.[14] In May 2025, Airwallex raised $300 million in a Series F funding round,[52] which increased its valuation to US$6.2 billion.[14] In July 2025, Airwallex became the official finance software partner of Arsenal Football Club.[53] Currently based in Singapore,[1] Airwallex has over 25 offices and 1,800 employees.[15]

Products and services

Airwallex states its financial platform for businesses has features related to online payments, spend management, embedded finance,[54] and global business accounts.[55] It uses a proprietary banking network to handle local transactions, with machine learning[7] in its SaaS products "[enabling] customers to... send money through local and international clearing networks"[56] in around 180 countries.[2] In late 2023, Airwallex began using generative AI for its know your customer (KYC) and customer onboarding process,[57] claiming the AI tool greatly increased efficiency.[58]

Beyond forex services, other services include online payments acceptance, bank accounts, borderless cards, and a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs).[10][59] According to the company, as of 2025 its technology is used by around 150,000 businesses,[52] including brands such as McLaren Racing,[44] Navan, Qantas, SHEIN,[60] HubSpot, GOAT,[61] Saturday Club,[62] EU Holidays[63] and Brex. Others in Australia and New Zealand have included Culture Kings, Kogan, Freelancer.com, and Camilla,[38] while Israeli firms include PAPAYA Global and OurCrowd.[60]

Airwallex Yield

In November 2023, Airwallex launched the investment product[12] Airwallex Yield[64] in Australia.[12] Yield allowed wholesale businesses to earn returns on their AUD and USD balances without opening a foreign bank account,[64] then a unique product in Australia. It became available to a broader market[11] in July 2024, when the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) granted Airwallex an Australian Financial Services License for retail investment products. By that point, Airwallex had A$100 million in funds under management.[64]

References

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  2. ^ a b Airwallex countries
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