By Jack Zhang (pictured), Co-Founder & CEO of Airwallex
In October this yr (2025), Airwallex hit a significant milestone: crossing $1 billion in annualized run fee income (ARR).
It’s tangible proof that world companies are shifting previous the constraints of an outdated monetary system. It represents the belief that our prospects place in us and our capacity to handle the wants of recent companies as they scale throughout markets, currencies, and borders.
The Path to $1 Billion
It took us 9 years to achieve our first $500 million in ARR – the second $500 million got here in simply over one yr.
The expansion curve steepened for a number of causes:
Rising buyer adoption: The variety of prospects utilizing a number of Airwallex merchandise has doubled since final yr: the clearest proof of sturdy and rising product market match. Prospects usually onboard with Airwallex to unravel a single want, then prolong their utilization throughout markets and product suites as they scale. That natural development displays deep belief and the worth of a single platform that may develop with them, wherever they go.
World-first corporations are defining the brand new period of development: A brand new technology of “born-global” companies are accelerating financial interconnection. Excessive-growth corporations in AI and SaaS are launching into a number of markets from day one, promoting, hiring, and transacting globally by design. Airwallex is uniquely positioned to energy that shift.
Contemplate Turing, a San Francisco-based analysis accelerator for AI labs and enterprises deploying AI methods. Turing works with some 4 million world specialists whose specialised data powers and trains frontier AI fashions. They wanted a software for automating world expertise payouts in a quicker, cheaper method than their present resolution. With Airwallex, they can substitute a number of regional suppliers with a single world payouts platform, enhance payout pace by way of native rails, and scale back operational prices by way of API-driven automation.
Put merely, we’re giving entrepreneurs and enterprise builders the worldwide banking platform they should develop, compete, and succeed at a world scale – at a second of accelerating complexity, volatility and alternative.
Attending to the subsequent $1 Billion and past
At our present development fee of roughly 90% yr on yr, Airwallex is on monitor to double once more, surpassing $2 billion in ARR throughout the subsequent 12 months. There are a number of levers fuelling our continued acceleration:
- Geographic and product diversification
Our development is more and more world. The Americas and EMEA now make up 35% of income, up from nearly zero simply three years in the past. This world attain is now a key engine for our enterprise. We’re deepening our go-to-market presence throughout Europe, North America, and different key Asian areas, whereas shifting additional upmarket to serve bigger, extra complicated prospects. That focus not solely strengthens our buyer relationships but in addition reinforces our model with traders and expertise. And with regards to product variety, roughly half of our prospects now use a number of Airwallex merchandise.
- Accelerating with AI
A decade of constructing proprietary monetary infrastructure now permits us to construct significant worth with AI. Fintechs which have invested in actual infrastructure – licenses, cost networks, compliance, and knowledge at scale – are finest positioned to win the AI race within the CFO’s workplace. That’s our edge. Our proprietary rails, safe knowledge flows, and scalable methods make our AI and software program indispensable to finance groups. The businesses that mix deep infrastructure with clever AI will form how each CFO operates within the decade forward.
- Constructing the Model
The previous decade was about constructing our merchandise, our infrastructure, and the proof that Airwallex might scale globally. That was our basis. The subsequent decade is about model fairness – incomes the belief of companies and entrepreneurs in all places. As a result of in the long term, model creates the deepest type of compound worth. I’ve by no means felt extra assured in our trajectory or our capacity to achieve the subsequent degree of development.
