Amidst the booming financing landscape of the AI semiconductor industry, the cross-border payment market has witnessed another massive funding event. On December 8, 2025, Airwallex, a global cross-border payment “unicorn,” completed its Series G financing round, raising $330 million (approximately RMB 2.3 billion) and achieving a valuation of $8 billion, equivalent to approximately RMB 56 billion, nearly 30% higher than its Series F financing round six months prior. This round was led by Addition, with participation from T. Rowe Price, Activant, Lingotto, Robinhood Ventures, and TIAA Ventures. Industry analysts point out that the reason cross-border payment institutions are attracting global capital is because their powerful fundraising capabilities far exceed those of the AI industry itself. When announcing its Series G funding round, Airlink also released revenue figures for the year, showing that its annualized revenue surpassed $1 billion in October, a 90% year-on-year increase; its annualized transaction volume doubled year-on-year, exceeding $235 billion in the first 10 months. Furthermore, Airlink stated that it currently holds 80 licenses and permits globally, supporting businesses in over 200 countries and regions, enabling large-scale multi-currency settlements. “This round of investors showed great interest in the company’s operating performance by 2025. Airlink is reshaping the competitive landscape of global corporate banking. Leveraging its global financial services infrastructure, software, and artificial intelligence technology, Airlink is poised to lead the development of global corporate banking. Traditional financial systems cannot meet the needs of today’s borderless business development, and Airlink is addressing this pain point with its unique advantages,” said Lee Fixel, an investor in Addition, explaining the investment decision. A review of the backgrounds of the investors in AirCloud’s Series F funding round reveals that the lead investor, Addition, is founded by Lee Fixel, a former partner at Tiger Global Management, who is highly skilled in investing in the technology and finance sectors and values technological barriers and scalability potential. T. Rowe Price is a long-established American asset management firm known for its long-term capital appreciation strategy. Lingotto Capital is an investment institution backed by the Italian Agnelli family and was a cornerstone investor in CATL’s secondary listing in Hong Kong. Its investment philosophy is “finding a few great companies.”
Regarding the use of funds, AirCloud also announced on December 8th that it will establish its second global headquarters in San Francisco, USA, deploying its core product, engineering technology, strategic cooperation, and marketing teams to its global AI innovation and talent center. It plans to double the size of its US team to over 400 people within the next 12 months and to expand its global team size by more than 50% by the end of 2026.
AirCloud’s development history is quite legendary. In 2015, a girl named Lucy Liu, who had just left investment banking, visited Max Li, an alumnus of the University of Melbourne, and also met Jack Zhang, an alumnus who was then co-owning a coffee shop with Max.
During a casual conversation at a coffee shop, Jack and Max discussed the inefficiency and high costs of cross-border payments, envisioning a fintech platform that could fundamentally change international financial rules. They agreed that this was a common problem faced by many businesses and a great entrepreneurial opportunity—to create a streamlined, transparent, and cost-effective cross-border payment solution for enterprises. Lucy Liu was very interested in this idea and met with Jack at the University of Melbourne library the next day, deciding on the spot to invest $1 million. The following day, $1 million was deposited into Jack’s account—no contract, no terms, only a confirmation email, and he received a 20% equity stake. Airlink’s real fundraising began in May 2017, with Tencent, Sequoia China, MasterCard, and other institutions becoming Airlink’s Series A investors, raising $13 million. Following this, with the explosive growth of Airlink’s business, the company embarked on a rapid fundraising journey. Airlink’s fundraising history is inextricably linked to the support of domestic capital and its development in the domestic market. In March 2023, AirForex announced that it had received regulatory approval to complete the acquisition of 100% equity in Guangzhou Shangwutong Network Technology Co., Ltd., a licensed payment institution, thus becoming a licensed institution engaged in cross-border payment business in China. What truly concerns the investment community is that, given the current trend of significant changes in the global trade environment, the influx of institutional capital into the cross-border payment sector, beyond the benefits of high business growth, is largely driven by policy support. To promote the opening and development of international trade and financial markets, governments worldwide have introduced relevant policies to encourage the development of cross-border payment business. For example, my country’s continuous optimization of its foreign exchange management system and promotion of RMB internationalization have created a favorable policy environment for cross-border payments. Simultaneously, with advancements in regulatory technology and the improvement of the regulatory framework, compliance in the cross-border payment field has been effectively guaranteed, further enhancing market confidence. “The rapid growth of the cross-border payment industry in recent years has largely benefited from trade globalization and the booming development of cross-border e-commerce. Currently, European and American venture capital institutions and pension funds continue to increase their equity investments in the cross-border payment sector, driven by new investment logic. First, under the new global trade landscape, countries worldwide will focus on the development of their local manufacturing industries, leading to a surge in demand for local companies to ‘go global,’ which will bring new growth potential to the cross-border payment sector. Second, existing traditional banking services may not be able to meet the ‘fragmented, high-frequency, and small-amount’ cross-border payment requirements of many countries’ local companies going global through e-commerce. This means that the construction of new global cross-border payment financial infrastructure will accelerate, providing cross-border payment companies with new opportunities to leapfrog ahead. Third, the transformation of the cross-border payment ecosystem by AI big data models will enable cross-border payment companies adept at using AI big data models to build stronger product and service barriers and user service stickiness, allowing them to stand out in the AI big data era,” said Huang Yong, a partner at an overseas venture capital institution who has long focused on the cross-border payment sector.
