Jack Zhang, cofounder and CEO of Airwallex.
Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg
Airwallex, a fintech startup headquartered in Hong Kong, has raised a $200 million Series E funding round at a valuation of $4 billion amid a wave of enthusiasm for digitalization amid the pandemic.
The funding round was led by U.S.-based Lone Pine Capital and included previous backers 1835i Ventures (formerly Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s innovation unit), Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China. New investors G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management, both based in San Francisco, also joined the round.
Airwallex has now raised a total of $702 million from investors in five funding rounds, according to the startup. The new investment will fund Airwallex’s global expansion and accelerate product development.
Lucy Liu, cofounder of Airwallex.
Cody Glenn/Sportsfile via Getty Images
“From the start, our vision has been to build a global financial operating system that will allow modern businesses to operate without borders,” said Jack Zhang, cofounder and CEO of Airwallex, in a statement. “This additional capital enables us to scale our presence in North America, U.K., Europe and other new markets including the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia, and become a dominant leader in global payments.”
Zhang cofounded Airwallex in 2015 with Xijing Dai, Max Li and Lucy Liu, who made the 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2017. Last month, the startup was featured on the Cloud 100 ranking of the world’s top private cloud companies.
Airwallex facilitates quicker cross-border payments, supporting about 30 currencies across more than 130 countries, among other services. The startup said revenue grew nearly 150% year over year in the first half of the year and almost doubled its headcount to nearly 1,000 employees this year across over 20 locations globally.
Fintech operators in general have had chances during the pandemic to pick up users as more people shop more online, U.S.-based Fifth Third Bank said in a research note. Last month, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey’s small business payments company, Square, agreed to buy Australian fintech company Afterpay for $29 billion.
