Nine months after its $80-million Series B, Australia-based fintech startup Airwallex went on to raise $100 million in a Series C round led by late-stage venture capital firm DST Global, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The round brings the valuation of Airwallex to over $1 billion, granting it entry into the unicorn club.
Existing investors including Sequoia Capital China, Tencent Holdings, Hillhouse Capital, Gobi Partners, Horizon Ventures and Square Peg Capital also participated in the round. The round also brings Airwallex’ total capital raised to over $200 million.
Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang told DEALSTREETASIA that the funding will be used to further drive its business expansion into Southeast Asia, UK, Europe and North America.
“We will also continue to develop more innovative payment products. We’ve been focused on high-growth internet companies and help them to move money around the world and now with the new markets that we’re going into, we want to look at servicing companies of all size, including micro businesses,” he said.
Founded in 2015, Airwallex focuses on cross-border transactions for SMEs and businesses. Zhang said, in the last nine months since it raised its $80 million Series B, Airwallex has opened up five new offices and grown its global team from 100 to over 260.
Asked if the three-year-old startup is looking at an initial public offering (IPO) soon, Zhang said it is not something that Airwallex would consider in the next few years.
“We don’t think we’re looking at that right now. Not in the next three years – we don’t have any plans [as yet] and we don’t really think about it. We will probably have another round, which will be our Series D and we will only look at that by end of this year or early next year but we’re not in a rush to raise any money anytime soon,” he said.
According to Zhang, Airwallex is processing “hundreds of millions” every month and it is targeting to process over $10 billion on this platform for this year.
DST Global managing partner Tom Stafford commented: “The growing e-commerce industry needs a technology-focused payments network that is reliable, cost-effective and provides data transparency. Airwallex has built such a network and we are excited to partner with Jack and the team as they continue to grow their business.”
Based in Hong Kong, DST Global is led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and has invested over $7 billion across 30 internet companies including Facebook, Spotify, Twitter, Airbnb, JD.com and Alibaba.
Edited excerpts with Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang:
