Venture capital announcement marks huge strides for Airwallex

University partner Airwallex has become the first technology start-up since Canva to win the backing of the nation's three largest venture capital firms. It has secured $US300 million ($467 million) in one of the biggest capital raisings in Australia.

The success was covered by The Australian Financial Review.

Several of the company’s co-founders are University of Melbourne alumni, including CEO Jack Zhang (CIS). Mr Zhang said the new funding marked a big step forward and will help the company “move faster in building the future of global banking”.

“We’ve expanded from international money transfer into an end-to-end global payments and banking platform that powers the full financial operations lifecycle: payments/checkout, multi-currency accounts, corporate cards and spend management, and APIs to run global finance at scale. And we’re just getting started.”

The company was started by Mr Zhang in 2015, alongside three University of Melbourne friends – Lucy Yueting Liu, Jacob Dai (CIS) and Ki Lok Wong. Max L, Mr Zhang’s former partner in Docklands coffee shop Tukk & Co, was also part of the founding group.

In 2022, Airwallex embarked on a partnership with the University, which is still running today and helping to build the next generation of Australian tech leaders.

The company is supporting scholarships, a fund for students experiencing financial hardship, and a series of activations, awards and facilities to foster innovation amongst students and alumni.

Learn more about the partnership between Airwallex and the University here: https://eng.unimelb.edu.au/partnerships/airwallex