Melbourne-born fintech Airwallex has seen its valuation increase by 30% in just six months following a second raise for 2025 – US$330 million (A$527m) in a Series G.
The round led by a new US VC investor Addition, supported by T. Rowe Price, Activant, Lingotto, TIAA Ventures, and Robinhood Ventures. Local VCs Square Peg – its 8th investment – and Airtree also emptied their pockets, but not newcomer Blackbird, which tipped in $60 million as part of a $232m Series F in May.
The new round sees Airwallex’s valuation leapfrog from $9.6 billion (US$6.2bn) valuation then, to A$12bn (US$8bn) now.
After opening Singapore in January 2022, then relocating its HQ there 12 months later, the global payments platform, which is officially domiciled in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, says it will now make San Francisco its dual global headquarters for continued US expansion, and AI development.
Airwallex also pledged to spend more than A$1.5 billion over 2026-29 to scale its US operations, from the local headcount to more than 400 employees over the next 12 months, to its footprint.
The fintech currently has 2,000 staff and plans to add another 1000 by the end of 2026.
However, news of the raise comes amid a bitter online stoush with outspoken rival US Stripe investor Keith Rabois, who last week accused Airwallex of giving the Chinese government access to US company data.
“Thanks to you, the Chinese government now has direct, covert, legally enforceable access to sensitive financial information belonging to America’s AI labs, defense contractors, financial institutions, healthcare firms, and Fortune 500s,” Rabois wrote on X.
The fintech declined to respond to Startup Daily’s request for comment on the imbroglio, but Airwallex cofounder and CEO Jack Zhang has denied the claims.
Nonetheless, concerns about the data privacy at the global fintech unicorn have increased in recent days, with media reports that Airwallex head of operations and strategy Briar Mercier, allegedly raised the alarm on internal Slack conversations in 2023, flagging potential pushback from the Chinese arm of the business when it sought to lock down KYC (know your customer) files on the basis of “potential revenue loss”, despite a potential compliance breach.
10-year no show
Meanwhile, Capital Brief reported that 700 Airwallex staff were flown to Bangkok a fortnight ago for a two-day celebration of the company’s 10-year anniversary, but cofounders Lucy Liu, who’s based in Singapore, and Zhang, based in London, didn’t turn up the shindig, disappointing their employees.
In a statement on the raise, Zhang said they’re building a single platform to powers global banking, payments, billing, treasury, and spend.
“This capital will accelerate our growth, extend our technical leadership, and strengthen our position in the U.S. and across key markets worldwide,” he said.
In 2025, Airwallex extended its regulated footprint and local capabilities in 12 new markets: France, the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and the UAE.
Zhang is also focused building a team of specialised AI agents to create a fully autonomous finance department.
“Airwallex connects the full spectrum of a customer’s financial operations – money in, money out, and everything in between, giving our agents the contextual data to execute with precision.”
Airwallex has now raised more than US$1.5 billion (A$2.25bn) since it was founded in Melbourne in 2015. The business is looking to go public via IPO next year.
