Latest news with #JackZhang
Sky News
16-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
As tech fortunes crash, Airwallex raises $300m at $6.2bn valuation
In an era where the valuations of financial technology (fintech) startups have plummeted and funding rounds have dried up, one Australian-born payments giant has bucked the trend. Airwallex, founded in Melbourne and with 25 offices around the world, recently received an investment of $300m (£222m) at a $6.2bn (£4.6bn) valuation. It stands in stark contrast to the sector's broader struggles, and signals something significant about both the company's trajectory and the future of cross-border banking. While many fintechs face valuation corrections and struggle to secure capital, Airwallex's milestone achievement raises an intriguing question: what makes this particular business so resilient in such challenging times? The problem that started it all The Airwallex story begins not in a Silicon Valley garage, but with a deceptively simple business challenge. Chief executive Jack Zhang and his fellow co-founders initially set out to test a global retail concept, but what might have appeared to be a café in Melbourne was actually a sophisticated experiment in cross-border commerce. The experience exposed the painful reality of international payments: excessive fees, opaque processes, and systems that seemed designed to frustrate rather than facilitate global business. This wasn't just academic frustration. The founders were living the very problem they would later solve, experiencing firsthand how traditional banking infrastructure penalises businesses that dare to operate across borders. That personal pain point would become the foundation for something much larger. Building the financial infrastructure of the future Rather than simply creating another payments processor, Airwallex recognised the need for comprehensive financial infrastructure. The company systematically built a suite of products that addresses the full spectrum of global financial challenges, from payments, foreign exchange, and transfers to expense management and embedded finance. The results speak for themselves. Today, Airwallex serves over 150,000 companies across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America. Their client roster reads like a who's who of forward-thinking businesses: McLaren Racing relies on Airwallex for cross-border financial operations support, while travel startup Flash Pack and automotive marketplace Carwow have integrated the platform into their products. And car-sharing platform Bolt recently partnered with Airwallex to build a new global payments system for its drivers. Defying market gravity What's remarkable about Airwallex's latest fundraise isn't just the $6.2bn (£4.6bn) valuation - it's achieving this milestone against the backdrop of a brutal fintech winter. While competitors face down rounds and struggling unit economics, Airwallex has demonstrated the kind of disciplined growth that investors desperately seek. The numbers tell a compelling story: $720m (£533m) in annualised revenue, gross profit growing at over 250% CAGR in the Americas and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), and more than $130bn (£96.3bn) in global annualised payments volume. Perhaps most tellingly, the company achieved cash flow positivity in 2023, a milestone that separates genuine businesses from growth-at-any-cost experiments. This financial discipline has attracted backing from top-tier investors including Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia, Visa Ventures and Lone Pine Capital. Their continued confidence suggests something significant: Airwallex isn't just surviving market volatility, it's positioned to thrive through it. The bigger vision: reimagining global banking But Series F funding rounds are about more than validating past performance; they're about enabling future ambitions. For Airwallex, that future centres on a fundamental reimagining of how global banking should work. The traditional banking system, as founder Jack Zhang and his team see it, is fundamentally broken. Built for a different era, legacy institutions often function as necessary obstacles rather than growth partners. In a volatile global economy where businesses face rising costs, regulatory complexity, and geopolitical uncertainty, this outdated infrastructure becomes a genuine barrier to success. Airwallex's vision for the future of global banking rests on two core principles: adaptability and partnership. Rather than forcing businesses to navigate rigid systems, the platform adapts to changing circumstances. Instead of extracting fees from transactions, it invests in customer growth and partners with these businesses rather than a transactional relationship. This isn't just philosophical positioning; it's reflected in the company's "out and up" expansion strategy. Airwallex simultaneously expands to new geographies while building additional applications on its platform. Today's product suite spans global accounts, online payments, foreign exchange, bill pay, expense management, and a range of API and embedded finance capabilities. US-based fintech Brex is already leveraging Airwallex's suite of solutions - including local currency collections for its global corporate card and global employee expense reimbursements. The capabilities of tomorrow will likely include innovations we haven't yet imagined. What this means for global commerce The Airwallex story is ultimately about more than one company's success. It's about the emergence of financial infrastructure that matches the reality of modern business - inherently global, digitally native, and built for speed rather than bureaucracy. For finance leaders and entrepreneurs watching from the UK, this represents both validation and opportunity. Validation that cross-border financial challenges can be solved elegantly and profitably, and the opportunity to partner with infrastructure that's been battle tested by some of the world's most demanding businesses. In a market where fintech promises often exceed delivery, Airwallex's combination of proven fundamentals and ambitious vision stands out. Their Series F funding round success isn't just about one company's fundraising achievement - it's a signal that the future of global banking is being built today, and it looks very different from what came before. As businesses increasingly operate without geographic constraints, the question isn't whether traditional banking will be disrupted. It's a question of whether forward-thinking companies will partner with the platforms that define what comes next, and whether those platforms can defy even the most volatile market conditions.
Straits Times
11-06-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
How founder of Singapore-based Airwallex rejected Stripe buyout before building $997 million fortune
Fintech founded in Melbourne in 2015 has grown into a US$6.2 billion global banking and payments platform, now based in Singapore. PHOTO: 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.
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Wall Street Heavyweights Grow Super Assets
Morning all, Rich Henderson in Bloomberg's Melbourne bureau with the latest headlines... Today's must-reads: • Wall Street giants grow super assets • Airwallex co-founder's net worth surges • First female Treasury secretary Wall Street giants are gaining a bigger slice of super assets with Boston-based State Street's assets under management in Australia jumping 50% in 15 months as Australian pensions put more money offshore Airwallex co-founder Jack Zhang's stake in Stripe is worth US$775 million as the entrepreneur's net worth surged in the decade since starting the Melbourne-based company and rejecting a deal from rival Stripe Treasury will be headed by a woman for the first time with Jenny Wilkinson taking on the role of secretary for the department for a five-year term starting next week
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
How Fintech Founder Rejected Stripe Buyout Before Building $775 Million Fortune
Seven years ago, Airwallex co-founder Jack Zhang walked away from what looked like the deal of a lifetime. Stripe Inc. was offering to buy his firm for $1.2 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, 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.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Airwallex Raises $300M As It Expands In U.S. And Latin America, Now Valued At $6.2B With Clients Like Shein And Xero
Payments startup Airwallex Wednesday that it secured a new $300 million funding round, pushing its valuation to $6.2 billion. Founded in 2015, Airwallex has grown into a global player by helping businesses send, receive, and manage international payments at scale, Reuters reports. With a network spanning more than 150 countries, the company now reports over $1.2 billion in total funding, with investors of the latest round including major names like DST Global, Square Peg, Lone Pine Capital, and Blackbird. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. While fintech startups exploded in valuation post-pandemic, many are now facing investor fatigue. According to Reuters, persistently high interest rates, recession concerns, and geopolitical volatility have forced many firms to delay fundraising or accept lower terms. Airwallex has bucked that trend since its 11% increase in valuation from the previous round in 2022 is a signal of both operational strength and investor confidence. The company now counts industry giants like Shein, Qantas, and Xero among its client base, Reuters says. CEO Jack Zhang told Reuters that more than 70% of the company's net revenue now comes from online payment processing and spend management, rather than just cross-border infrastructure. The diversification strategy appears to be paying off. Zhang emphasized in the company's announcement that Airwallex is no longer just a cross-border payments solution, but a broader financial operating system for modern businesses. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — 'The global financial system wasn't built for today's borderless economy,' Zhang said. 'Too many businesses are held back by legacy infrastructure that's slow, costly, and fragmented. At Airwallex, we're building a new foundation for the global economy – one that's fast, seamless, and built for scale. This investment marks a major milestone in our journey to redefine global banking, and to empower businesses everywhere to grow without limits.' Airwallex is also doubling down on global expansion. The company said it opened its U.S. headquarters in San Francisco last year and recently opened new offices in New York, Toronto, and Paris. According to Reuters, the startup is joining other payment providers competing with major players like JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and Citigroup (NYSE:C). In addition to its growing presence in North America, Airwallex is targeting Japan, South Korea, and Latin America as core areas for future growth. With a global headquarters now based in Singapore, the company is positioning itself as a truly borderless platform for modern business finance, Reuters said it developed a proprietary global infrastructure designed to modernize how businesses move money across borders. By building direct connections to local clearing systems and card networks, the company has created a faster, more efficient alternative to traditional banking rails. Most of the company's transactions are completed within hours, with a majority processed instantly. With tools that span global business accounts, FX, spend management, and embedded finance APIs, Airwallex is positioning itself as the operating system for modern businesses. With the new funding, Airwallex said in its funding announcement that it is now preparing for its next phase: deeper integration, bigger partnerships, and an even broader global footprint. Read Next: Invest where it hurts — and help millions heal:.Image: Shutterstock UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Airwallex Raises $300M As It Expands In U.S. And Latin America, Now Valued At $6.2B With Clients Like Shein And Xero originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
