Founders in Arms
00:06:55 · Rajat Suri, Jack Zhang
[00:06:55] S2: I know you you guys are both a fintech. I'm new to this space. So, Jack, maybe for the audience, also for me, like, just help us understand, like, you know, what is the scale of Airwallex today? And, like, you know, what kind of, you know, yeah, what kind of impact are you having today after ten years of building this? [00:07:12] S0: So now we scale the business to about over 2,000 employees globally that we're processing close to 300,000,000,000 sort of dollars in in transaction, operating in over a 120 countries around the world. And we also built, like, a fully vertical integrated system that, you know, with financial infrastructure and software and now AI, essentially like a vertical integrated financial operating system that to give global... You know, allow global company to operating everywhere in the world. And we now have close to like $1,200,000,000 in ARR, and the business is still growing 90% year on year. [00:07:57] S2: Okay. Great. That's incredible. Congrats on what you built. And do you go from here? Is this... Are you... Have you kind of realized your vision from ten years ago or there's still a long way to go?
00:07:57 · Rajat Suri, Jack Zhang
[00:07:57] S2: Okay. Great. That's incredible. Congrats on what you built. And do you go from here? Is this... Are you... Have you kind of realized your vision from ten years ago or there's still a long way to go? [00:08:11] S0: We still have like one... Less than 1% addressable market in the global banking payments sector. Right? So we are pretty well known in Australia and, you know, APAC. We're kind of a dominant fintech player there, but we're still, you know, reasonably, like, know, you know, the new in in Europe and in United States. And we made a very big effort in expanding to Europe and The US, you know, from the last four, five years. And the revenue in The US and Europe now close to 40% of the company's revenue already. But, you know, there's still a long way to go. Right? I mean, if you're looking at, like, less than 1% of the the the addressable market and, you know, there's plenty of headroom ahead of us, and we're also competing with the lack of Citi or HSBC. Right? We wanna become the new generation of of a global bank that a technology driven... Essentially, like a technology company that was banking licensed around the world. And there's massive opportunity ahead of us. [00:09:15] S2: And and how do you guys work together or, you know, like, you know, how are you guys gonna... You guys are both in this space.
00:09:15 · Rajat Suri, Jack Zhang
[00:09:15] S2: And and how do you guys work together or, you know, like, you know, how are you guys gonna... You guys are both in this space. [00:09:22] S0: I think if you think about, like... I mean, I'll let Yimad talk about Mercury. I mean, my opinion is, like, you have a lot of domestic banks and you have a lot of global banks. Right? So, you know, I think about, like, just, you know, Wells Fargo versus Citi or HSBC. I mean, that's kind of how I think about it. And those banks are working together as well. Right? So that we're looking at to help Mercury to do international payments for for their customers. And that's kind of basically the relationship between, like, you know, a a domestic bank versus a global bank. I mean, that's how I think about it. I mean, Manu, you help, you know, I don't wanna speak on your behalf. You you you can correct me if I'm wrong.
00:10:01 · Immad Akhund
[00:10:01] S1: Yeah. I mean, I think there's definitely opportunity to to work together, and there's some similarities. But I... Yeah. I don't think there's that many people that, like, are choosing either Mercury or Airwallex as, like, a competitive thing, either they're using both of us because they have different needs for both of us or are they using just one. I think one thing that's kind of interesting outside The US, if you look at these fintechs, most of them most of the big fintechs outside The U. S. Started with FX and Global Payments as their initial wedge, whether it's Airwallex or Wise or Revolut. In The U. S, like most businesses in The U. S. Don't or are not forced to have international markets from like early on, whereas in Europe at least, and I'm not as familiar with APAC, but maybe also true for APAC and Australia, Most businesses, even when they're like relatively small, end up wanting to do things internationally. So you have this like kind of global banking need very early on, where before the likes of Airwallex, it was just kind of a pain in the ass to use banks and get ripped off on like three percent FX fees. And it's just like really hard to make those payments. So yeah, do you think do you kind of view it like that, Jack? That like there was this kind of huge opportunity and wedge and now you've expanded from that? Or is that kind of like incorrect statement? And if you think about these kind of wedges, like do you think there's other wedges for fintechs? Or do you think like we've really explored the most obvious ones?
00:11:39 · Jack Zhang
[00:11:39] S0: We definitely started with FX, international payments, wedge to expand, you know, everywhere in APAC and Europe and then even Canada and Latin America. Right? So I think US is very unique as, you know, US dollar is the dominant currency of the world, and most of The US business doesn't transact in sort of multicurrency by default. And they apparently losing a lot of money from that. Right? You know, for example, if you're using Stripe to process payments in Europe as a US merchant and, you know, Stripe will charge you two, 3% on FX and settle US dollar. And if you have staff in Europe and and UK and you have to converting the money to pay them in local currency again. But US business is generally just, like, insensitive to those high FX costs because they've been just get used to operating in that, you know, US dollar denominated currency and US dollar denominated economy. But if you're looking at the history, right, so the rise of the global businesses is is actually the the biggest sort of trend in in the last thirty, forty years. Right? So if you look at the market cap of United States, that's double of the GDP of The US, which is about $30,000,000,000,000. Right? The the the the the market cap of The US is about $6,070,000,000,000,000 dollars. And one of the key reasons the market cap is bigger than the GDP of The US because a lot of these companies operating in The US are global businesses. Right? So in the last twenty to thirty years, that percentage of, like, in terms of, like, US businesses that generate revenue outside of The US. Right? So that's in about 40 to 50% today, and that's more than doubled of twenty to thirty years ago. It's like a sub 20%. So the the the need of a platform in The US to help these entrepreneurs in The US to grow globally to optimizing that financial operation to give them efficiency, to help them to expand the market, everywhere, essentially gonna... Driving the the GDP grow... I mean, to driving the the the The US economy. Right? So because close to half the the The US business is generating that revenue elsewhere. And as the rise of the Internet and now AI, the the global economy just more integrated. And, you know, regardless of the the the political perspective... But, you know, from an entrepreneur point of view, every single AR businesses are having customer globally.
00:14:06 · Jack Zhang, Immad Akhund
You want it to be, you know, global from day one, and you wanted to have a platform to help you to optimizing both from, you know, growth and also from efficiency and cost perspective. And that's exactly, you know, what Airwallet's trying to do, is to help the best entrepreneurs and the best company in The US to go global. [00:14:27] S1: I guess, recently, there was a controversy where Keith Robor... I don't know. It was after this fundraiser you did, but he kinda came in on on X, and he he said, like, hey. This company is like... Well, Airwallex is like a, well, I can't remember his exact phrasing, but roughly saying that you you guys are a Chinese company and you're stealing data from businesses. Yeah. I guess, like, what was the rough accusation? I didn't... I don't quite get why that makes sense, but also, like, you know, what was your response to that? And how did you feel after, like, Keith said that?