In April, when the pace of fundraising for young tech companies had slowed dramatically, digital payments network Airwallex bucked the trend. The five-year-old start-up raised $160m from a diverse group of banks, tech groups and investment firms, in a deal that valued it at $1.8bn.
Many areas of fintech — especially those using data analytics to extend loans to consumers and smaller enterprises — have been caught out by the speed of the economic slowdown that has followed the pandemic.
But Airwallex, whose head offices are in Shanghai and Melbourne, has held up better because it operates in a more promising fintech space: it helps small enterprises with operations beyond their home borders manage their foreign exchange needs, sending and receiving multiple currencies without handing exorbitant fees to the banks.