Australian fintech Airwallex confirmed as latest fintech unicorn following Series C fundraising
Airwallex confirms unicorn status following a successful Series C fundraising round of $100m USD, valuing the company at over $1bn USD. Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Australian fintech Airwallex has grown from an emerging start-up to a global challenger in the crossborder payment space, supporting a client base of internet titans including JD.com, Tencent and Ctrip, and large financial service companies including MasterCard. Top-tier investor DST Global led the Series C fundraising round, which closed at $100m USD. DST Global has been a primary investor across a number of global technology success stories, including Facebook, Airbnb and Spotify, and other fintech leaders, such as Robinhood. Alongside new investor DST Global, […]
“Play to your strengths”: Why Airwallex’s Lucy Liu rejects labels in startupland
She may be a leading woman in Australian startups, with her business pegged to become another local unicorn, but Airwallex co-founder Lucy Liu doesn’t like to think in labels, preferring to focus on her strengths and successes than her gender. Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex secured $109 million last June, in one of 2018’s biggest capital raises. Since then, Liu and co-founder Jack Zhang have been focusing on growing the team, and have opened three new offices. The business has been moving quickly, Liu tells StartupSmart. “Startup years are like dog years,” she says. “You have seven years’ worth of stuff in one year.” Last year, Liu took home […]
Australia just lost one of its most promising fintech startups, Airwallex, to Hong Kong
Tencent-backed payment operator Airwallex has become the latest fintech company to show interest in joining Hong Kong’s virtual banking push. Airwallex co-founder and chief executive Jacky Zhang said the company will team up with a traditional bank and other local partners as part of the application process, although he declined to reveal their identities. “We believe Hong Kong to be an ideal location to be our headquarters. Hong Kong is an international financial centre where we can serve our global clients worldwide,” Zhang said in an interview with the South China Morning Post in his newly installed office in Quarry Bay. Another reason for the relocation to Hong Kong is […]
Aussie Fintech Airwallex founders win Entrepreneur of the Year
The founders of an Australian Fintech company, Airwallex were named Entrepreneur of the Year in the EY South Regional Awards. Founders CEO Jack Zhang and COO Lucy Lui both won the Fintech category and will progress to the nationals where the winners will move on to the international round. The event was hosted by EY and the winners were chosen by an independent panel of prominent business leaders and entrepreneurs. This year, the board acknowledged the entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, financial performance, national and global impact, strategic direction, and integrity of Airwallex founders. To read more, please click on the link below… Source: Aussie Fintech Airwallex Founders Win Entrepreneur of […]
Airwallex in the money with $108m raise
Melbourne-based fintech start-up Airwallex has closed the second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history, taking in $US80 million ($108 million) for a Series B round led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings, alongside Sequoia Capital China and Melbourne’s Square Peg Capital. The company, which was founded by five Chinese-Australian 30-somethings, has built a system to enable cross-border payments by combining payments and foreign exchange transfers into a single transaction. In 2017 it raised $US19 million ($26 million) from the same investors, but it has now also added two more backers from China’s booming venture capital scene in Hillhouse Capital and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures, as well as Indonesia’s Central Capital Ventura. […]
AI RegTech deal boosts compliance speeds for Airwallex
Melbourne headquartered fintech startup Airwallex today announced a partnership with AI-driven RegTech ComplyAdvantage. The partnership will allow Airwallex to conduct real-time screening and monitoring of transactions for sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF), following a US$13 million Series A funding round from Tencent, Sequoia and Mastercard that has spurred rapid growth into new regions. ComplyAdvantage helps firms make intelligent choices by using Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics to manage their compliance and risk obligations, and to prevent the occurrence of financial crime. Regarded as one of the most trusted and innovative compliance solutions in the industry, ComplyAdvantage’s real-time insights will minimise risk on transactions conducted […]
Sequoia and Gobi hunting Aussie start-ups following Airwallex round
Big name Chinese venture capital firms are hunting for Australian tech start-ups to invest in, targeting firms in the fintech, agricultural and medical technology sectors. Sequoia Capital partner Steven Ji and Gobi Partners principal Chibo Tang were in Australia last week meeting with local start-ups, venture capital firms and government ministers, with the aim of finding new businesses to back and both agreed that Chinese investors were keen to invest in asset classes outside of property in the country. “We think Australia is a good place for innovation technology and products, particularly in the fintech area,” Mr Ji told The Australian Financial Review. “There’s been a lot of technology innovations […]
Fintech start-up Airwallex chipping away at the major players
Technology companies do not have to reinvent the industry they address – sometimes they can take a small slice of an enormous industry by being faster and cheaper. The Melbourne start-up, Airwallex, is a case in point. Offering flat-fee pricing for foreign exchange transactions will not instantly challenge the big players but given that forex sees a global daily turnover of about $US1.4 trillion ($1.9 trillion), the year-old business does not need massive market penetration to be highly profitable. “There’s 230 million foreign exchange transactions per month,” says chief executive and co-founder of the company, Jack Zhang. A former IT engineer for the big banks, Zhang says Airwallex uses some […]
