Jack Zhang on Building Airwallex and Scaling Global Payments

Harry Stebbings interviews Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang about his early life, building a cross-border payments business, financing and international expansion. The episode describes payment volume and run-rate gross profit, which are different measures from revenue or cash profit. Zhang's business and investment claims are his own and are not independently audited in the interview.

Zhang says he moved from China to Australia at about 15 and lost family financial support at 16. To cover tuition and living expenses, he worked at a restaurant, a lemon factory and other jobs. He recalls carrying boxes in extreme heat for roughly A$14 an hour and facing international-student tuition of about A$24,000 a year.

At university in Melbourne he worked as a dishwasher and bartender, then overnight at a petrol station, sometimes working long consecutive shifts several days a week. He met future co-founders there. His account is a personal experience of financial hardship, not a prescription for how many hours others should work.

His first taste of entrepreneurship came earlier, he says, from a student magazine funded by local advertising. He recalls it becoming popular and says proceeds were donated to the school. He credits both early success and hardship with building resilience, while the scale he recalls is not independently verified.

Zhang says years of demanding work gave him a different perspective on hardship; Stebbings describes his own motivation after his family lost its home. They discuss the drive for financial security and later ambition. Their experiences are personal and do not establish that burnout or hardship affects everyone the same way.

While employed in finance and engineering, Zhang says he ran several side businesses, including import-export and property. He estimates income from these activities rose into millions as they matured, but says he kept his coding job because he loved technology. These are retrospective self-reported amounts without financial records or a specified common profit measure.

He and co-founder Max Lee ran a coffee business and encountered difficulties paying overseas suppliers. Zhang says an international payment was delayed after a name matched a sanctions-list entry. He began examining correspondent banking and the SWIFT network, and imagined moving money internationally with less friction; the anecdote does not establish why that particular payment was delayed.

He first explored point-of-sale and payment systems for the café and debated NFC and QR approaches with his future CTO. They did not pursue that idea. The cross-border problem then became a larger ambition: connect payment infrastructure and foreign exchange rather than simply operate a café.

Zhang initially considered netting payments between people sending money in opposite directions. After raising money and building an algorithm, he says, the team realized the approach would require volumes far beyond what they could obtain. They instead began connecting to banking liquidity and local payment rails, a much harder infrastructure project.

Zhang recalls meeting Lucy, a friend of a co-founder, while discussing the coffee business. After hearing his payments idea, she offered to invest; he says they agreed on $1 million for 20% at a $5 million post-money valuation. He recalls the money arriving in his personal account before company paperwork was completed.

Stebbings suggests that at a hypothetical $9 billion company valuation, an initial $1 million investment could be worth about $1 billion after assumed dilution. This is the host's illustrative calculation, not disclosed current ownership, realized proceeds or a verified cash return. Zhang says Lucy later made other investments that did not work out.

Zhang says he resigned after receiving the funds and persuaded another engineering co-founder to join. He recalls several founders sleeping in a small office while building. They subsequently raised another $2 million, while many Australian venture investors initially declined.

The founders continued fundraising because the initial money could not support the full infrastructure vision. Zhang describes slow or withdrawn commitments and the importance of finding investors willing to back the team before product-market fit. His account concerns a particular set of negotiations and does not establish a general assessment of the investors involved.

Zhang discloses that he invested in Stebbings's Project Europe, and says he might not have invested in himself as a venture capitalist. Stebbings says he values Zhang's resilience and background. The host's praise comes alongside an investment relationship and should not be read as an independent performance assessment.

Zhang recalls a later meeting with DST's Yuri Milner, who asked about his upbringing rather than focusing on the product, followed by a proposed investment. He says DST ultimately led a round around a $1.1 billion valuation. The terms and timing are his recollection, not independently verified transaction records.

Returning to the early product, Zhang says peer-to-peer netting did not work and the team needed interbank liquidity plus local licenses and clearing connections. He recounts cold-calling Macquarie and getting help building an FX connection capable of handling small transactions. The commercial and technical terms are his account.

The first small-business invoicing product failed to find product-market fit, he says, partly because customer acquisition was expensive. Airwallex then pitched an API-based global settlement vision to Tencent and Sequoia while knowing the earlier product was not working. He recalls about 100 customers and little or no revenue at that stage.

Zhang describes a long Tencent approval process and a demonstration that returned an error during a meeting with James Mitchell. He says Mitchell nevertheless supported the investment and Sequoia and Mastercard joined. Zhang did not determine whether the demo error came from a firewall or an underlying provider, and the interview does not independently verify the negotiations.

He says Tencent and Mastercard had been expected to become major customers, but the actual relationships developed differently. Tencent built much of its own system and used Airwallex as one liquidity provider; he says a Mastercard-related channel produced much less volume than expected and was discontinued because of risky transactions. These are his accounts, not independent findings about the companies.

After further difficulties, Zhang says Square Peg led an additional roughly $6 million investment, giving the company time to pursue the infrastructure vision. He describes several iterations and near-death moments before the business found a stronger customer base.

He says tuition-payment customers and Shein drove transaction volume from zero to $1 billion within about nine months in 2018. Transaction volume is the value of payments processed, not Airwallex revenue. Zhang's description of customer concentration and growth is not independently audited in the interview.

Zhang recalls a crisis when a China payment partner threatened to cut access while Airwallex was handling a $20 million supplier payment for Shein. He says the team integrated a replacement partner over a weekend. He describes Shein as roughly 90% of the business at the time, illustrating both the importance and concentration risk of that customer.

He recalls investors leading an $80 million round at roughly $400 million pre-money as volume grew rapidly, while revenue remained small. He says Airwallex invested in licenses and direct infrastructure to differentiate its service. The valuation, volume and revenue are separate concepts; his competitive claims are not independently tested.

Zhang says Stripe approached Airwallex in 2018 as both companies considered expanding across payments and payouts. He recalls spending time with Patrick Collison and comparing their visions for financial infrastructure. His admiration for Stripe coexists with Airwallex's eventual competition with it.

He describes a proposed deal worth close to $1.2 billion with separate amounts for shareholders, founders and employees, though he is uncertain about some details. He says diligence took place and he was initially inclined to accept. The offer structure and its valuation are his recollection, not a disclosed transaction agreement.

Zhang says he considered what he would do after a multi-year commitment to Stripe, and consulted co-founders and senior leaders. Their opinions differed, but he ultimately decided to keep building Airwallex. He credits Collison's long-term commitment to Stripe with influencing his thinking; his estimate of what he might have made later is hypothetical, not realized wealth.

After raising more capital, Zhang says the company hired rapidly without a proper budget, growing from roughly 100-plus to 600 or 700 people in a year. Payment volume rose but revenue did not rise as quickly, and cash pressure returned. He describes this as a failure of financial discipline.

He invested heavily in broadening from money movement into cards, acquiring and banking services. He says the newer products took years to generate revenue. Rapid international expansion before local product-market fit was a mistake, in his view; the UK took around three years to find its fit while teams were hired ahead of a complete product.

Zhang says a proposed SoftBank financing stalled in 2019 amid the WeWork crisis, leaving the company seeking a lifeline. He recalls existing investors providing roughly $70 million to $100 million in convertible notes, followed by a round led by Hedosophia. The figures and sequence are his recollection.

As COVID spread and markets fell, Zhang says he was uncertain the round would close. He credits Ian Osborne with completing it and estimates a roughly $150 million round at a $1.7 billion valuation, including conversion of existing notes. That valuation is not revenue or an investor's realized return.

Zhang says the initial pandemic shock cut revenue roughly in half because tuition and travel were important customers. In reconstructing annual revenue he corrects himself: approximately $2 million in 2018, $10 million in 2019 and $20 million in 2020, followed by more growth in 2021. These are approximate recollections; a temporary shock and full-year revenue are different measures.

He says the business developed small-business banking and corporate-card capabilities while existing products continued growing, with new product revenue starting later. He recalls multiple rounds in 2021 and approximately $400 million raised that year, saying that capital helped fund expansion. The interview does not independently verify these figures.

Zhang says the business was burning close to $200 million a year around 2022 and was not profitable in 2023. He also says revenue growth remained at or above 100% from 2015 through 2023, with headcount held flat in later years, and cites roughly 90% year-over-year growth in a recent quarter. These are management claims, with exact metric definitions and audited comparisons not supplied.

He describes annualized revenue rising from roughly $500 million in August of the prior year to $600 million in November and $700 million in January or February. Annualized run rate is not the same as revenue earned over a full year. Stebbings projects a possible year-end figure; it is an extrapolation, not a reported annual result.

Discussing a recent $300 million raise, Zhang says it was priced at a $6.2 billion valuation and cites about $450 million in gross profit for the year. The gross-profit figure is presented as an expectation, while valuation is a financing price; neither is net income. He believes investors discount sustained high growth after the 2021 cycle.

Zhang says he and some co-founders were in the process of taking on $70 million of debt to buy Airwallex shares from early holders. He makes clear the transaction had not yet happened when asked about price. This is an intended leveraged secondary purchase, not a completed deal or company fundraising.

He says he previously sold some secondary shares and thinks late-stage founders may reasonably take enough liquidity to support their families. He suggests figures for London that Stebbings cautions should not be taken from early rounds. These are personal opinions about substantial wealth and timing, not financial advice or a universal standard.

Zhang says he values the CEO's ability to guide the company but dislikes some daily people and administrative work. Looking back, he would have used recruiting help earlier, avoided investing too far ahead of product-market fit overseas and paid closer attention to culture. He says some experienced hires did not fit and that dismissals were painful.

Asked about investors, Zhang says brand can help with hiring and commercial access, but the individual relationship matters too. He admires long-term investors and recalls a conversation with Michael Moritz about selling. These are his personal views of investors and business relationships.

In quick fire he admires Elon Musk, considers SpaceX and Stripe as hypothetical investments, and says he does not consider himself a strong early-stage investor. He emphasizes recognizing gaps in one's knowledge. These are personal views and hypothetical choices, not recommendations.

Looking toward 2035, Zhang hopes Airwallex can become a major global payments and banking platform, potentially larger than established banks. He says an IPO may eventually be considered but the team is focused on building. The vision is an aspiration, not a forecast or assurance of profitability.