Airwallex raised US$200 million in Series E funding round

By Leandra Monteiro

Airwallex, one of the fastest growing global FinTech platforms, announced it has raised US$200 million in an oversubscribed Series E financing round, increasing the company’s valuation to US$4 billion. This latest investment follows an extended Series D capital raise earlier this year in March, cementing Airwallex’s position as one of the fastest growing unicorns amid an unprecedented business environment affected by COVID.

This latest round was led by Lone Pine Capital. New investors G Squared and Vetamer Capital also joined the round, alongside existing investors including 1835i Ventures (formerly ANZi), DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China. With the completion of Series E, Airwallex has achieved more than US$700 million in equity funds raised to date.

The investment will support Airwallex’s global expansion and enable the company to accelerate multiple product development initiatives across its five engineering hubs, grow its sales and commercial teams and increase its breadth of offerings for SMEs and larger enterprises operating in the digital economy.

“We are excited to welcome Lone Pine Capital and our new Silicon Valley investors. Their wealth of experience, foresight and successful industry track records are a significant validation of our business and global growth strategy,” said Jack Zhang, Co-founder and CEO at Airwallex.

“From the start, our vision has been to build a global financial operating system that will allow modern businesses to operate without borders,” added Zhang. “This additional capital enables us to scale our presence in North America, UK, Europe and other new markets including the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia, and become a dominant leader in global payments.”

Airwallex has seen significant business growth in the last year, recording a year-over-year revenue growth of nearly 150% for the first half of 2021, and processing more than US$20 billion for a global client portfolio that has quadrupled in size, serving innovative global businesses such as GOAT, Papaya Global and Stake. The company has nearly doubled its headcount in 2021 and employs almost 1,000 employees today in over 20 locations globally. This year, Airwallex launched a series of new products and reached major milestones with its global expansion plans, opening for business in the U.S. last month, as well as securing an EMI license in the Netherlands and a Money Services Business license in Malaysia.

“Airwallex has a clear competitive advantage in the digital payments market,” said David Craver, Managing Director at Lone Pine Capital. “It’s unique Asia-Pacific roots, coupled with its innovative infrastructure, products and services, speak volumes about the business’ global growth opportunities and its impressive expansion in the competitive payment providers space. We are excited to invest in Airwallex at this dynamic time and look forward to helping drive the company’s expansion and success worldwide.”