Fintech Payment Platform Airwallex Raises $100 million

Privately held fintech company AirWallex announced on March 24th that they have raised $100 million of capital in their latest round of Series D funding. The latest round of funding has brought the company's evaluation up to $2.6 billion dollars. The funding was a joint effort with investment firms from both the United States and Australia participating. The U.S.-based firm Greenoaks, which has been a backer of other very fintech companies such as Stripe and Brex, led the new funding.  To date, AirWallex has raised a total of $500 million in equity funding since being founded in 2015.

Continuing a Trend of Rapid Growth

AirWallex is a fintech company that provides cross-border business solutions such as foreign currency accounts and multi-currency debit cards. Through their services, AirWallex offers businesses around the world an opportunity to manage payments and expenses internationally without the constraints of traditional financial systems. With an online presence becoming more and more necessary for businesses in a digital world, AirWallex has been rapidly expanding its product offerings to keep up with client needs. In 2020, the company started providing several additional services to complement its core service offerings. Their work with Visa in 2020 to create a “borderless card”  was one of several innovations that helped propel growth. Through this service, virtual cards could be set up online, allowing for a multi-currency wallet that made online purchases using other currencies a breeze. The company currently has options that allow for payment to over 130 countries. This product allowed businesses to eliminate the high costs of exchange rates and additional fees that came with international transactions. The cards currently only exist in a virtual format, which allows users of AirWallex to create multiple virtual cards for any number of employees. As part of their 2021 plan, the funds raised will go towards the development of physical cards. 

Funding Fuels Global Expansion

AirWallex has stated that the new capital will go towards global expansion. AirWallex was founded in Melbourne and has 12 global offices around the world. One of the company's main focuses this year will be its launch into the United States. The company is hoping to begin offering products and services in the country in the second quarter of 2021. Aside from this recent round of funding, earlier capital injections were also used by the company to aggressively scale up and expand in various regions around the world. For example, the takeover of Hong Kong payments UniCard was a massive accomplishment for the company in early 2021. Adding UniCard to the portfolio not only allowed AirWallex to expand its user base, but also gave the company one of the coveted Stored Value Facilities (“SVF”) licenses that are tightly regulated by the government. Through UniCard, AirWallex joined payment giants AliPay, WeChat pay, Paypal on a very small list of approved license holders in Hong Kong.

In addition, the money will also go towards expanding operations in regions such as Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In anticipation of this expansion, the company also announced that they are hiring for more than 500 positions in locations around the world.