Valued at USD 5.5 billion in late 2022 after securing USD 100 million in funding, Airwallex is reportedly planning to go public within the next two years, according to startupdaily.net citing one of the company's co-founders. The international payments firm, approaching its 10th anniversary, has raised a total of USD 902 million since its inception in 2015 according to the same source.
Airwallex's notable backers include Square Peg, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, Lone Pine Capital, Hermitage Capital, 1835i Ventures, Tencent, Hostplus, and Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar through their private investment funds.
The potential public listing follows a trend among privately owned unicorns contemplating exits, such as Canva, which is also considering an IPO in 2025. Airwallex aims to achieve profitability in 2023, expecting around USD 350 million in annual recurring revenue. Company representatives also highlighted an increase in employee engagement from 52% to 72% in Australia in the second half of 2023.
The holding company for Airwallex is registered in the Cayman Islands, a decision reportedly influenced by support from offshore investors, including Alibaba's Gobi Partners.
In December 2023, Airwallex joined up with WooCommerce to become a payment extension on the latter’s platform. Through this partnership, Airwallex allowed Woo merchants to accept cross-border payments instantly by using global cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other 60 local payment methods at checkout. This focused on enabling merchants with access to shoppers from Woo stores, without the difficulties of high foreign exchange (FX) conversion fees.
At the time, officials from Woo stated that the company’s main objective was to support merchants in launching their stores fast and maintaining their growth. The integration of Airwallex allowed merchants to instantly accept payments from customers globally, therefore assisting them in accelerating their international expansion strategy.
In the same month, Airwallex leveraged generative artificial intelligence (AI) to improve customer onboarding. The company shared data on the capabilities of its new generative AI tool that improves the speed and efficiency of the company’s Know Your Customer (KYC) and onboarding processes. According to the company press release, the solution aims to minimise false positives by 50% on average, while increasing the number of customers that pass through the onboarding process without human interference by 20%.
For more information about Airwallex, please check out their detailed profile in our dedicated, industry-specific Company Database.
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