00:00:00 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang, S2
[00:00:00] S0: At this point, you're already raising, like, a series a from Sequoia, Tencent. And, like, why do you [00:00:03] S1: think they invested? The vision I was talking about is building the largest money movement network in the world to completely displace in SWIFT. So the infrastructure vision is very big. Infrastructure is like the railways. You still need a train to carrying stuff on the rails to making money. We know it's a big idea to build a railway, but we just don't know what product you can carry on the train. So we spent $20.17 to build out a product. We got a tuition company. We got a few travel companies, and the volume from zero to a billion in that year. So we had a 100 times the volume in a year. And in middle of twenty eighteen, we raised another $80,000,000 from Sequoia and Tencent again. At the end of twenty eighteen, we were kind of growing almost a 100% month on month, and Stripe made us acquisition offer. [00:00:46] S2: This episode is brought to you by Brex, a brand I'm proud to have cofounded and one that's shaped by the same journey many of you are on. Brex has everything startups and fast growing companies need to make every dollar count from modern corporate cards, banking, and treasury to accounting automation, travel, and expenses. Over 25,000 companies including DoorDash, Scale AI, and Anthropic spend smarter using Brex. [00:01:10] S0: Hey, Jack. Thank you so much for coming over. Really appreciate it. [00:01:13] S1: Thanks, Enrique, to invite me for this podcast.
00:01:13 · Jack Zhang, Henrique Dubugras
[00:01:13] S1: Thanks, Enrique, to invite me for this podcast. [00:01:15] S0: Yeah. Super excited to have you here. So, Jack is the founder of Airwallex. So Jack, why don't you tell us a little bit, you know, in simple terms what Airwallex does and tell us a little bit about the business before we kinda jump in. [00:01:27] S1: Airwallex was founded in 2015. So our vision is to build the best financial and payments platform for global businesses to inspire entrepreneurs and business builders to connect with borderless economic opportunities around the world. [00:01:44] S0: So tell us, like, how big is the business? Like, you know, what products do you guys do today? Just to give everyone, like, a very tangible sense of where you guys are at. [00:01:52] S1: Now we have over 1,600 people globally and about 23 offices. We just surpassed 500,000,000 in ARR and $100,000,000,000 in payments volume last month. We turned cash flow positive at the end of twenty twenty three, and the business is still, you know, scaling very fast and expanding to many new geographies. And the easiest way to understand AirWallet is like with this software infused global digital bank for SMBs and then global businesses. Think about the traditional welding company like Citi or HSBC. Airwallet's basically building a competitive product but in a sort of digital native fashion. [00:02:38] S0: So, like, what... You know, let's make it very tangible. What products do guys like? So you have, like, global bank accounts, right? That's like
00:02:38 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:02:38] S0: So, like, what... You know, let's make it very tangible. What products do guys like? So you have, like, global bank accounts, right? That's like [00:02:43] S1: one Yeah. We core can help businesses to open bank accounts globally in close to 70 countries real time. We allow you to manage your treasury, moving money globally, paying out to your vendors and employees globally using the local payment method or infrastructure so that it's less than 10% of the cost of the traditional correspondent banking or SWIFT system. We give you a corporate card and allow you to manage expenses. We give you the capability to do managing online payments so you can check out. You can allow your customer to do check out globally, to sell to your customer globally, whether it's B2C or B2B. We allow you to send in invoices sort of together with the payments product. And we allow you to managing your workloads and financial operations in the company as well, like managing multiple entities globally, managing the treasury between those different entities, and then do your payroll for your employees around the world as well.
00:03:41 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:03:41] S0: Makes sense. So, like, if you operate a global business, any kind of financial services from, like, payments, corporate cards, money movement, paying invoice, receiving money, like, everything you can do in Airwall. It's multiple currencies, multiple countries in one place. Right? Correct. Yeah. Amazing. So super impressive. Like, a 100,000,000,000 volume is, like, crazy. Right? Like, that's, you know, the size of... It's larger than many GDPs of many countries, you know, kind of, like, around the world. So, you know, I'm very curious to understand, right, like, kind of, like, the... Your background before starting this business. I think it's... You have, like, such a fascinating story. So tell us a little bit, like, you know, where where were you born? How how was it like growing up? [00:04:20] S1: I was born in a small city in China. When you call small cities, you'll have $8,000,000... 8,000,000 population. And I moved to Australia when I was 15 by myself, then stayed with, like, a homestay, they call it, in the Australian family. And I spent my high school and college there in Melbourne, and later on worked in London and Hong Kong, then back to Australia, started many businesses, but also worked as an algorithm trader in an investment bank. Yeah. Then founded Airwallex in Melbourne in 2015. [00:04:54] S0: So we'll go back and deepen each of these parts. I'm I'm very, you know, interested. So tell us, like, how was it growing up in, like, a small town in China? Like, what what what was it like?
00:04:54 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:04:54] S0: So we'll go back and deepen each of these parts. I'm I'm very, you know, interested. So tell us, like, how was it growing up in, like, a small town in China? Like, what what what was it like? [00:05:03] S1: Just a lot of nature. Just hanging out with with friends every day, you know, go fishing, you know, go go hiking, and didn't really use much technology. Kind of lived in a very sort of original way of life, and there's not much of a restaurant. I mean, it's just a very small city. [00:05:25] S0: What were your parents there? [00:05:27] S1: My dad is active in a bank in China. My mom also a banker in China construction... Bank of China. [00:05:35] S0: Oh, interesting. Well, it's funny that, like, both of your parents were in banking, you ended up doing, like, a [00:05:40] S1: Yeah. [00:05:40] S0: Go over... Do you think there's anything related or no? [00:05:42] S1: No. I actually hated banking because my parents are so busy when I grow up, and they never really spend time with me. And I kinda hated banking as a job, and I didn't think there's any sort of technicality in that job because my... Just seeing my dad hanging out drinking with customers and just building relationships all day long, and there was not much technical stuff where I grew up always, you know, like anything technical, mechanical, you know, things like that. And I never thought about going to do anything in the banking finance industry, and my dream job was getting into a company like Google Microsoft when I was in college. Many reasons I ended
00:05:42 · Jack Zhang, Henrique Dubugras
[00:05:42] S1: No. I actually hated banking because my parents are so busy when I grow up, and they never really spend time with me. And I kinda hated banking as a job, and I didn't think there's any sort of technicality in that job because my... Just seeing my dad hanging out drinking with customers and just building relationships all day long, and there was not much technical stuff where I grew up always, you know, like anything technical, mechanical, you know, things like that. And I never thought about going to do anything in the banking finance industry, and my dream job was getting into a company like Google Microsoft when I was in college. Many reasons I ended [00:06:24] S0: up being so at school? Like... Yeah. [00:06:27] S1: I I was I was very good at school growing up. [00:06:31] S0: Because good in school in China is, like, really hard, right, to be, like, one of the [00:06:34] S1: Yeah. I was I was a Mass Olympian. I I did a lot of I really like all the all the math and physics stuff. You know? Give you an idea that when you... When I went to the the senior high school in China, I was the number four in the city. [00:06:48] S0: What did that, like, meant? Like, did you just study a lot? Were you, like, naturally just, like, smart? Like, or, you know, what what... How were you... It was both, you know, like, what what... Because at least from our perspective, like, it seems that, like, things are very competitive in China. Right? To be, like, number four in your city, it's, like, really, really competitive.