Australian Fintech Raises Funding from Sequoia China, Tencent, Mastercard
April 30 2017 - 11:30PM
Dow Jones News
By Robb M. Stewart
MELBOURNE, Australia--An Australian startup offering
payment-settlement services has secured funding for its
international expansion from investors including the Chinese
affiliate of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley's biggest
venture-capital firms.
Melbourne-based Airwallex Pty. Ltd. said it raised US$13 million
in a "series A" fund-raising round, with Sequoia Capital China,
Chinese internet firm Tencent Holdings Ltd. (0700.HK) and payments
company Mastercard Inc. (MA) joining in.
It follows an earlier round of funding last year led by
Shanghai-based venture-capital firm Gobi Partners that collected
US$3 million.
Airwallex, which is rolling out a new foreign-exchange payment
network, said the money would help propel its release and an
international expansion.
Founded in December 2015, the company said its order-management
system uses mathematical algorithms and machine learning to
determine how a payment should be executed, taking into account
time, priority and available routes in its calculation to increase
speed. Able to support thousands of transactions a second,
Airwallex promises a cost-effective alternative to existing payment
networks.
The funding marks the first startup investment in Australia by
Sequoia Capital China, which makes its investing decisions
independently from Sequoia Capital, said Steven Ji, a partner at
the Chinese investor.
Airwallex offer to integrate companies such as shopping websites
in another country into its network to support their payments,
allowing customers in Australia the ability to secure goods for the
price they are advertised at the time of searching, despite
currency fluctuations.
The company was launched by Jack Zhang, who previously worked as
a foreign-exchange solutions designer at Australia & New
Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ.AU) and National Australia Bank
Ltd. (NAB.AU), former China International Capital Corp. investment
consultant Lucy Liu and entrepreneur Xinjing Dai.
While working at National Australia Bank, Mr. Zhang and partners
founded a cafe across from the bank, which was where the idea for
Airwallex was sparked after they found the foreign-exchange fees
and rates very high for importing coffee cups and food packaging,
the company said.
Armed with a number of financial services licences and
partnerships across several countries, the company aims to make
international payments as cheap and simple as domestic payments,
Mr. Zhang said.
Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 30, 2017 23:15 ET (03:15 GMT)
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