Airwallex closes Series B fundraising with $80m
By Airwallex,
International payments company Airwallex today announced the successful completion of its Series B fundraising.
In this round, returning Series A investors Tencent and Sequoia China were joined by fellow China based Hillhouse, Sir Ka-Shing Li’s Horizons Ventures from Hong Kong, Indonesia’s Central Capital Ventura (BCA) and Australia’s Square Peg, with whom Airwallex partnered in December for US$6m Series A+ funding.
The new funding will be used to expand operations globally, with particular focus in South East Asia to deliver on what Airwallex has coined the ‘dream factory model.’
As explained by COO and Co-Founder Lucy Liu, “This model focuses on delivering full end to end solutions – not just FX and payments — enabling our clients to accelerate their global growth and open them up to new markets.”
Chinese based Sequoia have demonstrated strong confidence in the company’s ability to change how the world does business with the region, again participating in Airwallex’s fundraising.
Sequoia Founder Neil Shen said, “With the acceleration of global economic integration, foreign exchange and cross-border payments have received more and more attention from organisations. We believe that Airwallex’s continuous improvement of cross-border payment solutions can help Chinese companies solve this pain point, and thus better demonstrate their value in the global competition arena.”
Providing connections with China and SEA remains at the core of the business. The global distribution of Airwallex’s funding will elevate their focus within the region; the company has Singapore and Hong Kong in their sights, and will expand their presence in their home market of Australia.
Singapore has quickly become a key focal market for Airwallex. Their Singapore based team has grown rapidly, adding senior product and business development roles in recent months, demonstrating their ongoing commitment to building on the ground teams who specialise in delivering market specific solutions.
Within Hong Kong, funds will be put towards encouraging financial inclusion for SMEs in the market, and will seek to acquire a Virtual Banking licence in Hong Kong to support the fintech ecosystem globally.
Airwallex will use the new funding to seed the go-to-market for a new product suite that will solve the pain felt by SME’s attemping to grow internationally, but hitting sizeable payments and FX barriers.
“Airwallex wants to support businesses with awesome financial products,” Lucy says. “In providing these solutions, we intend to shake up the industries we’re playing in. We’re creating better, more cost effective one-stop-shop solutions using technology delivered around the world.”
“Our end game is to provide the global network required for businesses to scale globally and take advantage of the digital and online opportunities that exist when you’re transacting in multiple markets.”
Built to bolster foreign exchange payments around the world, the Airwallex platform is powered by a sophisticated FX and payment engine and a transparent pricing model to avoid inflated margins and minimise market risk. The platform supports thousands of transactions per second, providing a cost-effective alternative to existing payment networks for businesses looking to automate and scale international payment workflows.
