Cross-border payments startup Airwallex raises $13M in Series A round

Cross-border payments startup Airwallex has raised US$13 million in a Series A funding round led by Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital China, and Mastercard. This funding round follows a pre-Series A round of US$3.75 million in early 2016 led by Gobi Partners. Headquartered in Melbourne and founded in 2015, Airwallex was the first Australian startup to join the Mastercard Start Path accelerator program in September 2016. It today has offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and London too. The company will use the latest funds to propel the release of its suite of APIs that help businesses to process international payments at scale. The Airwallex platform supports foreign exchange payments from around the world, and “is powered by a sophisticated FX and payment engine and a transparent pricing model to avoid inflated margins and minimize market risk.” “The continued growth of international trade and the global economy rely on efficient cross-border transactions,” said Airwallex Co-Founder and CEO, Jack Zhang.

“Our mission is to eradicate the burden of international payments so that businesses can transact across borders with ease. Armed with a growing number of financial services licences and partnerships across numerous jurisdictions, we aim to make international payments as cheap and simple as domestic payments.”

According to Steven Ji, Partner of Sequoia, Airwallex is Sequoia Capital China’s first startup investment in Australia. “Foreign exchange transactions pose a real challenge for businesses that operate across borders, and Airwallex’s solution has seriously impressed us in its ability to close the gap and allow companies to financially access markets that may have previously been out of reach,” Steven Ji said.