![](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/06\/getty_b_120710_manwallet-money.jpg?w=630\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Australia-based cross-border payments startup Airwallex<\/a> has closed a $13 million Series A round to expand its reach across Asia Pacific and into Europe.\u00a0The deal\u00a0was led by Chinese internet giant Tencent \u2014 marking its first investment in an Australian startup \u2014\u00a0with participation from Sequoia China, Mastercard and other undisclosed investors.<\/p>\n Airwallex was founded last year to tackle the issue of cross-border transactions at scale. Unlike predominantly consumer-focused services such as\u00a0TransferWise \u2014 which actually\u00a0opened an Asia Pacific HQ last week<\/a> \u2014 Airwallex targets businesses, allowing them to make and receive international payments at scale at\u00a0both a lower cost and with less hassle.<\/p>\n Beyond convenience of faster payment and reconciliation, the\u00a0Melbourne-based startup, which previously raised $3 million last summer<\/a>, has forged\u00a0relationships with trading partners to help its customers save money on their overseas transactions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve made settlement and reconciliation very easy, but our customers can also enjoy institutional FX\u00a0prices to save a lot of money,\u201d Airwallex CEO Jack\u00a0Zhang told TechCrunch in an interview.\u00a0\u201cWe can access the most competitive pricing in the world to facilitate traditional retailers that don\u2019t enjoy that sort of rate.\u201d<\/p>\n Already it is working with Tencent to help lower backend costs for its WeChat Pay service overseas \u2014 which is seen to have potential to grow alongside the emergence of outbound tourism from China, where WeChat is the dominant messaging app \u2014 but Zhang said the firm primarily deals with\u00a0financial institutions, insurance companies and others that\u00a0\u201cdo international payments at scale.\u201d Two undisclosed clients, he said, are forecast to transaction \u201cbillions of U.S. dollars\u201d each by the end of 2017, and the firm is on the hunt for more customers in this bracket.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes sense to take strategic investment from Tencent because the\u00a0WeChat ecosystem and WeChat pay is a big deal,\u201d he added. \u201cThe internationalization will be interesting in the next couple of years, so we want to prepare ourselves for that expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n Airwallex principally offers its business customers an API that can slot into their existing systems to handle global\u00a0transfers. It charges a transaction fee based on the payment, which is metered by API usage although the company plans to introduce a manual mass-payout option in the coming month or so, according to Zhang.<\/p>\n The startup is also working on growing its presence in Europe. It recently opened a London-based office and Zhang said the team is working to connect prospective customers in Europe to their business interests in Asia Pacific more efficiently.<\/p>\n Overall, Airwallex has around 40 staff and offices in Melbourne, Shanghai and Hong Kong, alongside that new London base it is also planning to open a presence in Singapore. Right now, Zhang said its most common corridor is transactions between China and Southeast Asia, but Australia and New Zealand are also significant.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no immediate plan to enter the U.S. market, but Airwallex is already preparing for that eventuality by getting the relevant licenses for the country.<\/p>\n \u201cIn two or three years as our transaction volume ramps up a bit, our focus can be wider. Right now, the focus in on Asia Pacific and Europe,\u201d\u00a0Zhang said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia-based cross-border payments startup Airwallex has closed a $13 million Series A round to expand its reach across Asia Pacific and into Europe.\u00a0The deal\u00a0was led by Chinese internet giant Tencent — marking its first investment in an Australian startup —\u00a0with participation from Sequoia China, Mastercard and other undisclosed investors. Airwallex was founded last year… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-339727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}