Payments Startup Airwallex Could Seek $150M Funding

Payments platform Airwallex could seek $150 million in an extended Series E funding round while the startup also explores a possible initial public offering (IPO) in 2024, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (April 26), citing unnamed sources with insider information.  

Backed by Tencent Holdings, Airwallex has held discussions with several possible investors to round out the funding within the next couple of months, the sources told Bloomberg. 

Its Series E funding round in November 2021 raised a total of $300 million so far after getting backing of $100 million from investors including Lone Pine Capital and Sequoia Capital China. The company’s post-money valuation is estimated at $5.5 billion, sources told Bloomberg.

Talks are ongoing, and anything could change regarding the amount of the additional funding and IPO discussions. 

Airwallex declined to comment, Bloomberg reported. 

See also: Global FinTech Airwallex Closes $100M Series E at $5.5B Value

The startup has raised an estimated $800 million to date backed by DST Global and Mastercard.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, and co-founded in 2015 by the owners of a Melbourne coffee shop, Airwallex is a cross-border payments and foreign exchange platform that provides services including cross-border end-to-end payments and collection solutions for customers. It has more than 1,000 employees in 19 offices in countries including China, Australia, Japan, the U.S. and the U.K., according to its website. The company uses an application program interface (API) that easily integrates to offer a scalable tool for the issuance and payment of invoices in preferred currencies.

Airwallex has been busy scaling its operations across APAC, EMEA, and the U.S. In addition, the company introduced virtual employee cards in Hong Kong and the U.K., and moved into Southeast Asia after being granted payment licenses in both Singapore and Malaysia, PYMNTS reported.

Last month Airwallex teamed up with investing app Plum to support its cross-border payments and foreign exchange (FX) needs.

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