Airwallex, a China-based financial services management software provider backed by internet group Tencent, financial services firm ANZ Bank and enterprise software publisher Salesforce Ventures, increased its series D round to $200m yesterday.
The $40m extension came from undisclosed new and existing investors. It follows the initial $160m tranche in April 2020 co-led by ANZi Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, corporate venturing divisions of ANZ and Salesforce respectively.
E-commerce group Tencent participated in the round, which took place at a reported $1.8bn valuation and also featured private equity firm Hillhouse Capital and VC firms DST Global, Horizons Ventures and Sequoia Capital China.
Founded in 2015, Airwallex produces application programming interfaces (commonly known as APIs) that enable large financial services firms to implement a range of features into their online platform such as support for foreign bank accounts and receivables denominated in foreign currencies.
The company began as an international remittance service but later diversified starting with a virtual card in partnership with Visa capable of generating new card numbers to pay suppliers in their local currency.
The extra series D cash will enable Airwallex to press on in key geographical markets including a US launch anticipated in the first quarter of 2021 and mounting a recruitment drive set to bring its workforce to 240 from 140.
Tencent backed its $13m series A round in 2016 alongside payment services provider MasterCard, Sequoia and Square Peg, the last of which returned to supply $6m in series A-plus funding seven months later.
Tencent subsequently joined Central Capital Ventura, the VC vehicle owned by financial services firm Bank Central Asia, for an $80m series B round in mid-2018 also backed by Square Peg, Hillhouse, Horizons Ventures and Sequoia.
Airwallex later picked up $100m of series C funding in March 2019 at a reported $1bn valuation. DST led the round, which also included Tencent, Hillhouse, Sequoia, Horizons Ventures and Gobi Partners.
Jack Zhang, CEO and co-founder of Airwallex, said: “A major shift in the way businesses operate from offline to online is something Airwallex predicted from our inception.
“However, 2020 has fast-tracked this transition in a way no one could have foreseen. Businesses are now racing to embrace digital transformation at an unprecedented rate.
“We are more certain than ever that the digital economy is going to be the centre of the world’s economic structure.”