Super will help fund the next wave of unicorns
The country’s leading venture capitalists are tipping more direct investment will flow from superannuation firms such as Hostplus into start-up deals, as more $100 million-plus raises test the funding capacity of the VC firms. Last week cross-border payments start-up Airwallex became the latest Australian company to achieve the lauded $US1 billion valuation milestone, making it the quickest local start-up to achieve unicorn status. The valuation came on the back of a $US100 million raise ($141.3 million) for the fintech, which is less than four years old. The raising was led by US investor DST Global, with participation from Sequoia Capital China, Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Gobi Partners, Horizons Ventures and Square Peg […]
Australian fintech Airwallex confirmed as latest fintech unicorn following Series C fundraising
Airwallex confirms unicorn status following a successful Series C fundraising round of $100m USD, valuing the company at over $1bn USD. Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Australian fintech Airwallex has grown from an emerging start-up to a global challenger in the crossborder payment space, supporting a client base of internet titans including JD.com, Tencent and Ctrip, and large financial service companies including MasterCard. Top-tier investor DST Global led the Series C fundraising round, which closed at $100m USD. DST Global has been a primary investor across a number of global technology success stories, including Facebook, Airbnb and Spotify, and other fintech leaders, such as Robinhood. Alongside new investor DST Global, […]
PayPal now lets US users instantly transfer funds to bank accounts in seconds
PayPal, a longtime alternative to the direct use of cards, cash and bank transfers to make payments for goods online and in stores, is today adding a new feature to help it tap into a wider range of customers, such as gig economy workers and use cases — in competition not just against banks (and Zelle, a service that they back), but also younger upstarts like Stripe, Square and others chasing the same business. PayPal is launching Instant Transfer to bank, which will let those receiving money via PayPal instantly move that into their bank accounts to access as cash or however else they would like to use it. The […]
