Jack Zhang had designed foreign exchange trading platforms for NAB and ANZ. After he and Max Li invested in a Melbourne coffee shop, they found paying overseas suppliers slow and expensive. In 2015 they founded Airwallex in Melbourne with Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai and Ki-Lok Wong.
In 2018 Airwallex raised about A$80 million and moved its headquarters to Hong Kong. That year NAB cancelled transactional banking for Airwallex customers, and the company turned down a Stripe offer of about $1 billion.
In March 2019 it raised $100 million at a valuation of about $1 billion. Hong Kong police froze about $26 million that year, and a court dismissed the matter in 2021. In November 2021 it raised $100 million at $5.5 billion.
Annualised revenue reached $500 million in August 2024 and $720 million in March 2025. In May 2025 it raised a $300 million Series F at $6.2 billion. In October 2025 it reached $1 billion in annual revenue and $235 billion in volume, and in December 2025 raised $330 million at $8 billion.