AIRWALLEX JOINS CANVA ON AUSSIE RICH LIST
FINTECH Airwallex has joined the likes of Canva to become one of Australia’s richest tech start-ups, with its valuation ballooning to $US4bn ($5.53bn) following an oversubscribed $US200m funding round.
The company, which was the fastest Australian start-up to reach a billion-dollar valuation, is rapidly expanding globally and now has five engineering hubs, across Australia, the Netherlands, the US and China.
The funding round was led by Netflix and Amazon investor Lone Pine Capital.
Chief executive and cofounder Jack Zhang said Airwallex has now raised more than $US700m in equity to date.
This enables us to scale our presence in North America, UK, Europe and other new markets Jack Zhang
Airwallex, which allows other businesses to operate internationally by enabling quick cross-border transactions, has set a milestone target of reaching $US1bn in revenue in 2025. “From the start, our vision has been to build a global financial operating system that will allow modern businesses to operate without borders,” Mr Zhang said. “This additional capital enables us to scale our presence in North America, UK, Europe and other new markets … and become a dominant leader in global payments.” Airwallex has posted yearover-year revenue growth of nearly 150 per cent for the first half of 2021, Mr Zhang said, and processed more than $US20bn for a global client portfolio that has quadrupled in size. It now employs almost 1000 employees across 20 locations globally, and is aiming to hire 100 engineers across Australia by the end of the year. “We want to become a one-stop-shop with bank accounts, cards, and potentially in the future cash management and lending,” Mr Zhang said. The company was started by students from the University of Melbourne