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Australia-based Airwallex is the new technology company to enter the "unicorn club, worth billions of dollars." The company announced today the closing of a $ 100 million series C cycle that allows it to exceed one billion dollars.
Founded in Melbourne in 2015 by four Chinese founders, Airwallex provides a service that allows businesses to manage their company's cross-border revenue and financing as an alternative to the TransferWise consumer-centric service.
For example, his clients can set up bank accounts abroad if they have paying customers abroad. When they want to redistribute these revenues in their headquarters, they simply do so via the Airwallex system, which uses interbank trading to trade currencies at an average market rate. This is something that can save its customers up to 90% on their exchange rates, and this greatly simplifies the business challenge abroad.
This new round of financing is led by DST Global – the leading investors backed by Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Xiaomi and more – with the participation of loyal investors such as Sequoia China, Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Gobi Partners, Horizons Ventures and SquarePeg Capital in Australia. Airwallex has now raised more than $ 200 million; his previous investment was an increase of $ 80 million about nine months ago.
Most impressive, the company became a unicorn three years after its launch. It's an impressive feat. She has come a long way since we wrote about her $ 3 million round at the end of 2016. CEO Jack Zhang told TechCrunch that the company was being public with its valuation for the first time as it provides a major validation that will help to build a reputation and develop additional services in the field of financial services.
"We have discussed with a number of global funds that we found interesting, but we chose DST because our biggest priority is international expansion. [the firm will] help us open doors and seize new opportunities, "said Zhang about the lead investor of the cycle.
Indeed, the vision of Airwallex has grown since this tour. Today, the company has eight offices worldwide and employs more than 260 people. She helped send "billions" of US dollars around the world through her payment streams. This year, it expects this number to reach "tens of billions", while focusing more on customers and services.
"Traditionally, we served a lot of Internet companies, but now we say that size does not matter," Zhang said. "We want to tackle small businesses and help all businesses grow and grow on a global scale."
On the product side, he added that "the vision has evolved and we are building a fundamental global financial infrastructure now".
What exactly does it mean? Zhang explained that Airwallex wanted to be more than a cross-border business partner. It already offers services such as virtual bank accounts in 50 countries, connects to partners to offer other financial services – for example Stripe – and its planned future products include the issuance of credit cards to enable businesses to manage money abroad with more granular control.
Indeed, Airwallex already has an internal team called "Alpha" that helps SMEs and other companies to develop abroad. This is very similar to Amazon's AWS business, but Zhang explained that Airwallex had made undisclosed investments in two companies for which a global vision was aligning.
"Alpha identifies companies in the start-up phase and helps them grow," said Zhang. "Whether they work with us or not, we do not mind, we help them connect to investors and networks."
The founders of Airwallex (from left to right): Xijing Dai, Jack Zhang, Liu Lucy and Max Li
The idea of this trade came to Zhang, who spent time with the Australian banks ANZ and NAB, after being frustrated by the difficulties of importing foreign products for a coffee business in which he has invested with friends.
"We were importing from abroad and paying a lot of money to Western Union," he recalls. "Everything was very slow."
Airwallex has solved this problem for all investors / owners of international coffee shops, but Zhang is convinced that the future of his business must be an ecosystem for global banking and financial services. What that could mean in the future is unclear. Airwallex is ideally placed to offer loans and financings, directly or via partners, and to be truly involved in the growth of its customers and their activities.
After starting to focus on Asia – and China in particular – Zhang is tackling global growth, which really means the United States and the United Kingdom and is expanding beyond the Airwallex offices to London and San Francisco. The company is looking to launch acquisitions, Zhang admitting that his team is "actively looking for interesting payment startups in the UK and the US".
Airwallex is also looking into bank licenses in some markets, which could mean that it will again have to raise additional capital at the end of this year or at the start of 2020.
The company does not say much about its own financial data at the moment. Airwallex earns its money by taking an undisclosed share of the transactions made by its customers – Zhang called it "tiny" but he stated that his business figure had been multiplied by five the year last, while he was experiencing a "double-digit" growth monthly. The economy is based on strong unit economies, he says.
For the moment, the support of its investors allows Airwallex to develop its business without having to focus on profitability. This is difficult for some financial technology companies – such as TransferWise and competing banks in Europe – but Zhang is convinced that when this changes, his company will have no problem being sustainable.
"We believe that there are tremendous opportunities for companies such as Airbnb and Amazon, while SMEs need a truly one-stop shop for their business to move from local to global. . We know that we have so many sources of income that we can get on the future, [but for now we are] We focused on customer acquisition and helped our customers grow, "he said.
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