CEBU, Philippines -- Airwallex, a Hong Kong-headquartered global payments unicorn, announced raising $200 million in an oversubscribed Series E funding round led by US-based investment manager Lone Pine Capital.
The company said the latest funding round brings its total funds raised to date to more than $700 million and raised its valuation to $4 billion. Airwallex raised $300 million in its Series D funding round that was completed in March.
G Squared and Vetamer Capital also joined as new investors, while existing investors, including 1835i Ventures, DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China, participated in the funding round.
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015 by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Zhang, along with co-founders Lucy Liu, Jacob Dai and Max Li, before moving its headquarters to Hong Kong in 2018.
The firm offers a global fintech payment platform that helps businesses manage payments, treasury and expenses internationally, without the constraints of the traditional financial system.
It operates a team of over 1,000 employees across 20 global offices and is looking to fill hundreds of open roles.
Airwallex said the new investment will support its global expansion and boost its product development initiatives across five engineering hubs, among others.
The additional capital will also enable the company to scale its presence in North America, the U.K., Europe and other new markets, including the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia, said Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex.
The Series E funding round also comes as Airwallex secured a money services business license from Malaysia's central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia. The license will allow the fintech unicorn to offer international payment solutions for Malaysian businesses of all sizes from early 2022.
The new license also marks Airwallex's entry into Southeast Asia, a market that has been in the company's expansion plans. Malaysia now joins Airwallex's key markets that include Australia, the U.K., the European Union, the U.S. and Hong Kong.
The company recorded year-over-year revenue growth of 150% for the first half of 2021 and processed more than $20 billion for a global client portfolio that has quadrupled in size.
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