Airwallex

Airwallex is a multinational financial technology company offering financial services and software as a service (SaaS). Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia ^[3] and currently based in Singapore,^[1] the company is a financial technology platform providing cross-border payments and financial services to businesses through a proprietary banking network and its API.^{[4] [5]} It also provides services and products such as business accounts, expense cards, and payroll,^[6] among others.^[7] It was Australia's third technology unicorn company overall.^[8] With a valuation of US5ドル.5 billion, as of 2022, the company processed 50ドル billion in annualized transactions.^[9]

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.^[5] 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),^[10] and was inspired to provide a simple, cheaper service to small and midsize businesses.^[5] 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ドル million,^[11] roles included Zhang as CEO,^[7] Liu as president,^[5] Li as head of design, Dai as chief technology officer, and Wong as principal architect.^[7]

The Airwallex platform was developed to lower consumer costs on foreign exchange rates,^[11] and was launched in a closed beta trial stage in 2015.^[12] 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.^[5] ANZ began providing transactional services to Airwallex in 2017,^[13] with both MasterCard's Send platform and Tencent's WeRemit service powered by Airwallex.^[14] In 2018, Airwallex moved its headquarters from Melbourne to Hong Kong ^[5] and turned down a US1ドル billion acquisition bid by Stripe.^[13] Airwallex closed the "second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history" in July 2018, netting 80ドル million.^[15]

After a round of funding in March 2019 brought in 100ドル million from investors such as DST Global, Sequoia Capital, and Hillhouse Capital,^[5] Airwallex reached a valuation of US1ドル billion,^[16] and became the "quickest company in Australia to reach unicorn status,"^[17] as well as Australia's third technology unicorn overall.^[8] 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."^[18] In 2020, NAB was providing payroll and rental payment services to Airwallex.^[19] The NAB had previously cancelled transactional banking services for Airwallex customers in 2018.^{[19] [20]} In 2021, Hong Kong unfroze 18ドル.2 million in funds and released them to Airwallex^[21] after Hong Kong's High Court dismissed suspicions^[17] by the Hong Kong Police Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance ^[17] that two former Airwallex clients had used Airwallex for money laundering.^{[17] [22]}

In May 2021, Airwallex received a license in the Netherlands, giving them access to the European market.^[23] Airwallex started operations in the US in August,^[24] and secured a license in Malaysia in September 2021.^[25] In November 2021, Airwallex raised an additional US100ドル million, reaching a new valuation of 5ドル.5 billion and bringing the total funds raised since 2015 to 802ドル million.^[26] In late 2021 it had 1000 employees in 19 locations.^[27] The company processed 20ドル billion at an annualized volume in 2021,^{[28] [29]} and by 2022, that had increased to 50ドル billion processed in annualized transactions.^[30] Airwallex released a debit card with Visa in Hong Kong in 2021,^[31] followed by a release in the U.S. in 2022.^[32] Airwallex launched in Singapore in early 2022.^[33] In Oct. 2022, Airwallex raised another US100ドル million as part of its Series E funding round, sustaining its estimated valuation of US5ドル.5 bln.^[6] CRN valued it at US5ドル.6 billion in Oct. 2022.^[34]

In Mar. 2023,^[35]  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.^[36] As of Aug. 2023, key markets included Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and Hong Kong. Also in 2023, Airwallex launched into Israel^[37] and Canada.^[38] In October 2023, Airwallex acquired a Mexico-based payments company, MexPago. The deal was made to help the firm expand its footprint in Latin America.^[39] Currently based in Singapore,^[1] Airwallex has a total of 20 locations^[9] and most recently had 1400 employees.^[34]

In 2024, Airwallex achieved an annual revenue run rate of 500ドル million.^[40]

Airwallex states its financial platform for businesses has features related to payments, treasury, spend management, and embedded finance.^[41]

Airwallex uses a proprietary banking network to handle local transactions, with machine learning ^[5] in its SaaS products "[enabling] customers to... send money through local and international clearing networks" in around 130 countries.^[2] Beyond forex services, other services include online payments acceptance, bank accounts, borderless cards, and a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs).^{[7] [42]}

According to the company, as of 2023 its software infrastructure is used by 100,000 businesses^[41] including brands such as Navan, Qantas, SHEIN,^[9] HubSpot, GOAT,^[30] Saturday Club,^[43] and Brex. Others in Australia and New Zealand have included Culture Kings, Kogan, Freelancer.com, and Camilla,^[34] while Israeli firms include PAPAYA Global and OurCrowd.^[9]

• Airwallex Pty Ltd

• Financial services companies of Australia
• Financial services companies of Hong Kong
• Financial services companies established in 2015
• Online financial services companies of Australia
• Electronic funds transfer
• Financial technology companies
• Payment service providers
• Merchant services

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata