How founder of Singapore-based Airwallex rejected Stripe buyout before building $997 million fortune
NEW YORK – Seven years ago, Airwallex co-founder Jack Zhang walked away from what looked like the deal of a lifetime. Stripe was offering to buy his firm for US$1.2 billion (S$1.5 billion) and legendary Sequoia investor Michael Moritz was urging him to accept.
After weeks hashing out the details and sale price with Stripe's billionaire co-founder Patrick Collison, Mr Zhang was close to agreeing. Then doubts crept in. He called a vote with his three co-founders and over a WhatsApp call they decided to turn the offer down.
Since then, the firm they founded in Melbourne in 2015 has grown into a US$6.2 billion global banking and payments platform, now based in Singapore.
Mr Zhang holds a 12.5 per cent stake worth US$775 million (S$997 million), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing the 40-year-old for the first time.
While Airwallex's latest valuation is less than Stripe's – most recently priced at US$91.5 billion – the two companies are increasingly overlapping as their product lines expand. In 2024, Airwallex launched a new service helping US businesses accept payments online, bringing it into direct competition with Stripe. A few months later, Stripe launched multicurrency accounts, something Airwallex has offered since 2018.
'We're going to compete a lot more in the next decade and I'm excited about that,' Mr Zhang said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Mr Zhang said he plans to have Airwallex ready for an initial public offering by the end of 2026. That said, he's not in a rush to list since he has ambitious growth plans and said he's sitting on more than US$600 million in financial firepower. Airwallex's most recent fundraise late last month added US$150 million in fresh equity financing from investors including Square Peg Capital, DST Global and Blackbird.
'We don't have any concrete plans of going public immediately or in the next one or two years, but we will be IPO ready by the end of next year,' Mr Zhang said. 'We have plenty of opportunity to grow in more than 20 jurisdictions that we operate in so we think staying private is a better approach for the time being.'
Side hustles
Mr Zhang spent his early years in China's Shandong Province before he was sent to Melbourne to attend Westbourne Grammar School, where he lived with an Australian host family. When he was 16, his father lost his job at a regional bank back home, leaving Mr Zhang to provide for himself. He picked up a series of gigs – lugging lemon boxes at a factory, washing dishes at a local restaurant and as a petrol-station cashier. After finishing school, he enrolled at the University of Melbourne to study computer science. That relentless work ethic and always-on mentality of his school years stuck with him. 'I always had a side hustle,' Mr Zhang said.
By the time Mr Zhang started Airwallex with his co-founders – Lucy Liu, Dai Xijing and Max Li – he'd already amassed a roughly US$10 million fortune working full-time in various engineering roles while also pursuing side ventures like the real estate development group he started, Hohen International. While working as a solutions architect for the foreign exchange team at National Australia Bank, Mr Zhang started Tukk & Co., a coffee shop in Melbourne, with his college friend Max Li. That eventually led them to found Airwallex.
A constant headache for the duo was that their payments to coffee bean vendors in Brazil and Indonesia were repeatedly blocked. After some investigation, they concluded another person with similar name to Li was on the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's blacklist, resulting in problems with cross-border payments that were being routed through the United States. Mr Zhang concluded the system of sending payments through a conga line of banks to reach the intended destination added unnecessary cost and over-complicated compliance.
'I'm a solutions architect,' Mr Zhang said of his thoughts at the time. 'I can build a better system to essentially give retail customers the interbank rate, give them full transparency and make sure they don't need to pay a whole bunch of spread.'
No slowing down
In order to make that vision a reality, Airwallex holds licenses around the world permitting it to open bank-like accounts in more than 70 countries and enables international transfers to 200-plus countries using local infrastructure in roughly 120 of those. The company is Singapore-based, but with members of the executive team spread around the globe. Mr Zhang primarily splits his time between London and New York, while also trying to remain available for his global employee base.
The latter is becoming increasingly hard. The firm now has more than 1,800 employees in 26 offices around the world.
Local Australian media reported in 2024 that intense workplace culture had led to high staff turnover. The same year, Mr Zhang shared in a blog post that the company had under-invested in the people and talent team, but had expanded those operations to support employees.
Mr Zhang himself doesn't show any signs of slowing down. After the most recent fundraise, his goal is to build Airwallex into a complete operating system for global businesses by increasing its investment in technologies like artificial intelligence.
While Mr Zhang has lofty ambitions, he faces steep competition from Stripe and other fintechs like Nium, another global cross-border payments firm that was valued at US$1.4 billion in 2024. Mr Zhang says the demand for banking and payments platforms designed to accommodate international operations is on the rise.
'Tech-native businesses are more likely to be global from day one,' Mr Zhang said. 'Any mom and dad selling on Amazon or Shopify is a global business.' BLOOMBERG
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Trump, EU's von der Leyen meet to clinch trade deal, rating chances 50-50
TURNBERRY, Scotland - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met US President Donald Trump on Sunday to clinch a trade deal that would likely result in a 15 per cent tariff on most EU goods, but end months of uncertainty for European Union companies. US and EU negotiators huddled in final talks on tariffs facing crucial sectors like cars, steel, aluminium and pharmaceuticals before the meeting began at Trump's golf course in Turnberry, western Scotland. Trump, who had earlier played a round with his son, told reporters as he met von der Leyen that he wanted to correct a trading arrangement he said was "very unfair to the United States" and repeated his comments from Friday that the chances of a US-EU deal were 50-50, a view echoed by von der Leyen. "We have three or four sticking points I'd rather not get into. The main sticking point is fairness," he said insisting the EU had to open up to American products. Von der Leyen acknowledged there was a need for "rebalancing" EU-US trade. "We have a surplus, the United States has a deficit and we have to rebalance it... we will make it more sustainable," she said. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who flew to Scotland on Saturday, told "Fox News Sunday" that the EU needed to open its markets for more US exports to convince Trump to reduce a threatened 30 per cent tariff rate that is due to kick in on August 1. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Sewage shaft failure linked to sinkhole; PUB calling safety time-out on similar works islandwide Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Workers used nylon rope to rescue driver of car that fell into Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole Asia Singapore-only car washes will get business licences revoked, says Johor govt World Food airdropped into Gaza as Israel opens aid routes Sport Arsenal beat Newcastle in five-goal thriller to bring Singapore Festival of Football to a close Singapore Benchmark barrier: Six of her homeschooled kids had to retake the PSLE Asia S'porean trainee doctor in Melbourne arrested for allegedly filming colleagues in toilets since 2021 "The question is, do they offer President Trump a good enough deal that is worth it for him to step off of the 30 per cent tariffs that he set," Lutnick said, adding that the EU clearly wanted - and needed - to reach an agreement. A separate US administration official was upbeat that a deal was possible. "We're cautiously optimistic that there will be a deal reached," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But it's not over till it's over." The EU deal would be a huge prize, given that the US and EU are each other's largest trading partners by far and account for a third of global trade in goods and services. Ambassadors of EU governments, on a weekend trip to Greenland organised by the Danish presidency of the EU, held a teleconference with EU Commission officials on Sunday to agree on the amount of leeway von der Leyen would have. In case there is no deal and the US imposes 30 per cent tariffs from August 1, the EU has prepared counter-tariffs on 93 billion euros (S$139 billion) of US goods. EU diplomats have said a deal would likely include a broad 15 per cent tariff on EU goods imported into the US, mirroring the US-Japan trade deal, along with a 50 per cent tariff on European steel and aluminium for which there could be export quotas. EU officials are hopeful that a 15 per cent baseline tariff would also apply to cars, replacing the current 27.5 per cent auto tariff. Possible exemptions Some expect the 27-nation bloc may be able to secure exemptions from the 15 per cent baseline tariff for its aerospace industry and for spirits, though probably not for wine. The EU could also pledge to buy more liquefied natural gas from the US, a long-standing offer, and boost investment in the United States. Trump told reporters there was "not a lot" of wiggle room on the 50 per cent tariffs that the US has on steel and aluminium imports, adding, "because if I do it for one, I have to do it for all." The US president, in Scotland for a few days of golfing and bilateral meetings, said a deal with the EU should draw to a close discussions on tariffs, but also said pharmaceuticals, for which the United States is looking into new tariffs, would not be part of a deal. The EU now faces US tariffs on more than 70 per cent of its exports, with 50 per cent on steel and aluminium, an extra 25 per cent on cars and car parts on top of the existing 2.5 per cent and a 10 per cent levy on most other EU goods. EU officials have said a "no-deal" tariff rate of 30 per cent would wipe out whole chunks of transatlantic commerce. A 15 per cent tariff on most EU goods would remove uncertainty but would be seen by many in Europe as a poor outcome compared to the initial European ambition of a zero-for-zero tariff deal on all industrial goods. Seeking to learn from Japan, which secured a 15 per cent baseline tariff with the US in a deal almost a week ago, EU negotiators spoke to their Japanese counterparts in preparation for Sunday's meeting. For Trump, aiming to reorder the global economy and reduce decades-old US trade deficits, a deal with the EU would be the biggest trade agreement, surpassing the US$550 billion deal with Japan. So far, he has reeled in agreements with Britain, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, although his administration has failed to deliver on a promise of "90 deals in 90 days." REUTERS

Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
US, China to resume tariff talks in effort to extend truce by 90 days
Find out what's new on ST website and app. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng will lead tariff talks on July 28, in Stockholm. STOCKHOLM – Senior US and Chinese negotiators will meet in Stockholm on July 28 to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of the countries' trade war, aiming to extend a truce keeping sharply higher tariffs at bay. The South China Morning Post reported on July 27 that the two sides are expected to agree to extend the truce by three more months. China is facing an Aug 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump's administration, after Beijing and Washington reached a preliminary deal in June to end weeks of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs. Without an agreement, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from duties exceeding 100 per cent. The Stockholm talks, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng, take place a day after European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen meets Mr Trump at his golf course in Scotland to try to clinch a deal that would likely see a 15 per cent baseline tariff on most EU goods. Trade analysts on both sides of the Pacific say the discussions in the Swedish capital are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs but could prevent further escalation and help create conditions for Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet later in 2025. Previous US-China trade talks in Geneva and London in May and June focused on bringing US and Chinese retaliatory tariffs down from triple-digit levels and restoring the flow of rare earth minerals halted by China and Nvidia H20 AI chips and other goods halted by the United States. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Sewage shaft failure linked to sinkhole; PUB calling safety time-out on similar works islandwide Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Workers used nylon rope to rescue driver of car that fell into Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole Asia Singapore-only car washes will get business licences revoked, says Johor govt World Food airdropped into Gaza as Israel opens aid routes Sport Arsenal beat Newcastle in five-goal thriller to bring Singapore Festival of Football to a close Singapore Benchmark barrier: Six of her homeschooled kids had to retake the PSLE Asia S'porean trainee doctor in Melbourne arrested for allegedly filming colleagues in toilets since 2021 So far, the talks have not delved into broader economic issues. These include US complaints that China's state-led, export-driven model is flooding world markets with cheap goods, and Beijing's complaints that US national security export controls on tech goods seek to stunt Chinese growth. 'Stockholm will be the first meaningful round of US-China trade talks,' said Mr Bo Zhengyuan, Shanghai-based partner at China consultancy firm Plenum. Deals, deals, deals Mr Trump has been successful in pressuring some other trading partners, including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines , into deals accepting higher US tariffs of 15 to 20 per cent. He said there was a 50-50 chance that the US and the 27-member European Union could also reach a framework trade pact, adding that Brussels wanted to 'make a deal very badly'. Two of Mr Trump's top trade officials, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, will attend the Scotland talks and then travel to Stockholm. Analysts say the US-China negotiations are far more complex and will require more time. China's grip on the global market for rare earth minerals and magnets, used in everything from military hardware to car windshield wiper motors, has proved to be an effective leverage point on US industries. Trump-Xi meeting? In the background of the talks is speculation about a possible meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Xi in late October. Mr Trump has said he will decide soon whether to visit China in a landmark trip to address trade and security tensions. A new flare-up of tariffs and export controls would likely derail any plans for a meeting with Mr Xi. 'The Stockholm meeting is an opportunity to start laying the groundwork for a Trump visit to China,' said Ms Wendy Cutler, vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Mr Bessent has already said he wants to work out an extension of the Aug 12 deadline to prevent tariffs snapping back to 145 per cent on the US side and 125 per cent on the Chinese side. Still, China will likely request a reduction of multi-layered US tariffs totaling 55 per cent on most goods and further easing of US high-tech export controls, analysts said. Beijing has argued that such purchases would help reduce the US trade deficit with China, which reached US$295.5 billion (S$379 billion) in 2024. China is currently facing a 20 per cent tariff related to the US fentanyl crisis, a 10 per cent reciprocal tariff, and 25 per cent duties on most industrial goods imposed during Mr Trump's first term. Mr Bessent has also said he would discuss with Mr He the need for China to rebalance its economy away from exports toward domestic consumer demand. The shift would require China to put an end to a protracted property crisis and boost social safety nets to encourage household spending. Mr Michael Froman, a former US trade representative during former president Barack Obama's administration, said such a shift has been a goal of US policymakers for two decades. 'Can we effectively use tariffs to get China to fundamentally change their economic strategy? That remains to be seen,' said Mr Froman, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank. REUTERS
Business Times
5 hours ago
- Business Times
Trump, EU's von der Leyen to meet to clinch trade deal
[GLASGOW] European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to meet US President Donald Trump on Sunday (Jul 27) to clinch a trade deal for Europe that would likely see a 15 per cent baseline tariff on most EU goods, but end months of uncertainty for EU companies. US and EU negotiators huddled in final talks on tariffs facing crucial sectors like cars, steel, aluminium and pharmaceuticals before the meeting, which is expected at 1530 GMT on Trump's golf course in Turnberry, western Scotland. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick flew to Scotland on Saturday and EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic arrived on Sunday morning. Lutnick told 'Fox News Sunday' that the EU needed to open its markets for more US exports to convince Trump to reduce a threatened 30 per cent tariff rate that is due to kick in on Aug 1. 'The question is, do they offer President Trump a good enough deal that is worth it for him to step off of the 30 per cent tariffs that he set,' Lutnick said, adding that the EU clearly wanted – and needed – to reach an agreement. A separate US administration official was upbeat that a deal was possible. 'We're cautiously optimistic that there will be a deal reached,' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'But it's not over till it's over.' BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up The EU deal would be a huge prize, given that the US and EU are each other's largest trading partners by far and account for a third of global trade. Ambassadors of EU governments, on a weekend trip to Greenland organised by the Danish presidency of the EU, held a teleconference with EU Commission officials on Sunday to agree on the amount of leeway von der Leyen would have. In case there is no deal and the US imposes 30 per cent tariffs from Aug 1, the EU has prepared counter-tariffs on 93 billion euros (S$140 billion) of US goods. EU diplomats have said a deal would likely include a broad 15 per cent tariff on EU goods imported into the US, mirroring the US-Japan trade deal, along with a 50 per cent tariff on European steel and aluminium for which there could be export quotas. EU officials are hopeful that a 15 per cent baseline tariff would also apply to cars, replacing the current 27.5 per cent auto tariff. Possible exemptions Some expect the 27-nation bloc may be able to secure exemptions from the 15 per cent baseline tariff for its aerospace industry and for spirits, though probably not for wine. The EU could also pledge to buy more liquefied natural gas from the US, a long-standing offer, and boost investment in the US. Trump told reporters there was 'not a lot' of wiggle room on the 50 per cent tariffs that the US has on steel and aluminium imports, adding, 'because if I do it for one, I have to do it for all.' The US president, in Scotland for a few days of golfing and bilateral meetings, told reporters upon his arrival on Friday evening that von der Leyen was a highly respected leader and he was looking forward to meeting with her. He said there was a 50-50 chance that the two sides could reach a framework trade pact, adding that Brussels wanted to 'make a deal very badly'. The EU now faces US tariffs on more than 70 per cent of its exports, with 50 per cent on steel and aluminium, an extra 25 per cent on cars and car parts on top of the existing 2.5 per cent and a 10 per cent levy on most other EU goods. EU officials have said a 'no-deal' tariff rate of 30 per cent would wipe out whole chunks of transatlantic commerce. A 15 per cent tariff on most EU goods would remove uncertainty but would be seen by many in Europe as a poor outcome compared to the initial European ambition of a zero-for-zero tariff deal on all industrial goods. Seeking to learn from Japan, which secured a 15 per cent baseline tariff with the US in a deal earlier this week, EU negotiators spoke to their Japanese counterparts in preparation for Sunday's meeting. For Trump, aiming to reorder the global economy and reduce decades-old US trade deficits, a deal with the EU would be the biggest trade agreement, surpassing the US$550 billion deal with Japan. So far, he has reeled in agreements with Britain, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, although his administration has failed to deliver on a promise of '90 deals in 90 days.' REUTERS