Jack and Airwallex raises a Series H - and the value of the company soars

Congratulations to Jack Zhang, the Airwallex founders, and the entire team on announcing their Series H funding, along with the launch of T:0 and Airi.

Airwallex is one of Australia’s greatest technology success stories. From humble beginnings in a Melbourne café to becoming one of the world’s leading fintech companies, it demonstrates what is possible when visionary founders combine relentless execution with global ambition.

What makes this story even more exciting is that it still feels like the beginning. With an enormous global market opportunity, an exceptional product suite, deep regulatory capabilities across multiple jurisdictions, and AI accelerating innovation, Airwallex is exceptionally well positioned for its next phase of growth.

Great companies don’t just build products—they build ecosystems. Airwallex is inspiring the next generation of Australian founders, creating jobs, attracting global capital, and proving that world-class technology companies can be built from Australia.

Congratulations also to Square Peg and the investors, board members, employees, customers, and partners who have helped make this journey possible. Success at this scale is never the result of one individual—it is the outcome of a remarkable team united behind a bold vision.

At #referron , stories like Airwallex reinforce why we are passionate about helping ambitious founders and helping Australian innovation scale globally.

The next Airwallex is already being built somewhere today.

The question is: who will help them get there?

#Airwallex #AustralianStartups #Fintech #AI #VentureCapital #Innovation #Scaleups #BSIVC #FounderJourney #StartupEcosystem #referron

2025

Venture Capital in Australia: Talking about going all on with Airwallex: https://bsivc.blogspot.com/2025/12/talking-about-going-all-on-with.html

2021

Venture Capital in Australia: Airwallex reaches a US$4b valuation / yet another Ozzie Unicorn : https://bsivc.blogspot.com/2021/09/airwallex-reaches-us4b-valuation-yet.html

2016

Venture Capital in Australia: Airwallex - a fin tech startup from Melbourne - raises $4.5m from

Chinese investors: https://bsivc.blogspot.com/2016/07/airwallex-fin-tech-startup-from.html

Another Ozy hits a home run . Modular exits for A$5b

Modular is a remarkable Australian technology success story. An AI infrastructure startup co-founded in 2022 by Tim Davis from Melbourne and Chris Lattner.

It is being acquired by Qualcomm for US$3.9 billion (A$5.6 billion), after raising US$250 million in 2025 at a valuation of US$1.6 billion to rapidly scale.

investors

• U.S. Innovative Technology Fund
• DFJ Growth
• GV – Google’s venture capital arm
• General Catalyst –
• Greylock – Early investor in companies such as Facebook, Airbnb and Workday.

What it does

Built software that enables AI applications to run efficiently across different chips without developers having to rewrite their code.

Customers include major technology companies such as Amazon, Oracle, NVIDIA and AMD. 

Who is Tim Davis?

Tim Davis’s journey is equally interesting. After studying law and commerce at Monash University, he moved to Silicon Valley in 2012, worked at Google, and then left to build Modular. His strategy was to capitalise on what he described as the biggest technology supercycle in history—the commercialisation of AI. 

So what are the lessons?

Infrastructure wins can be enormous. Rather than competing directly with AI models, Modular built the tools that everyone else needs.

Speed matters. The company reached a multibillion-dollar exit in just four years because it addressed a critical bottleneck in AI deployment.

Global ambition from day one. Davis relocated to Silicon Valley to access talent, customers and capital while maintaining strong Australian roots.

Solve a universal problem. Making AI run efficiently across any hardware has applications across virtually every industry.

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Australia has produced several global tech success stories in recent years—including Canva, AirWallex and now Modular.

Australian founders can build companies of global significance when they target large international markets. 

AI Accounting startup, Byron, raises $6.5m Byron

AI founders Blaze O'Byrne and Wilm Kranz have just raised $6.5m in an ai accounting solution called Byron Bambi’s based in San Francisco.

the problem

Every tax season in the US, accountants turn mountains of unstructured paperwork into completed returns, and the work is largely manual. More than 120,000 accounting and audit roles sit unfilled each year, and business tax keeps getting more complex. Legacy software hasn't cracked it.

the solution

That's where Byron comes in. The Al agent plattorm handles the business tax worktlow trom client document intake through to review-ready output, source-linking every extracted number and knowing when to bring a human in.

the clients

CPA firms—helping them processing unstructured client data to generating review-ready workpapers and output. “Accountants don’t have a demand problem, they have a capacity problem,” O’Byrne said 

The agents take on a series of tasks between receiving the client data and completing the finished tax return.

the Investment

Square peg has led the US$6.5m Seed round, with participation from Sorenson Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures and Correlation Ventures.

Capital Gains Tax changes may unintentionally hurt innovation, startups and entrepreneurship in Australia.

The government is trying to cool property speculation and improve housing affordability with Legislation that could punish people who take risks building businesses from scratch. Founders often invest years of time, low salaries and personal risk to create value, and if they are taxed too heavily when they eventually sell their business, it reduces the incentive to innovate and build companies in Australia. 

The tech industry is effectively saying:

* there is a difference between passive investing and building a company

* startup founders create jobs, exports and productivity

* Australia already struggles to keep top talent and capital locally

* overly aggressive CGT changes could push entrepreneurs and investors offshore

The government appears open to consulting with the startup and technology sector to potentially create carve-outs or incentives for early-stage and innovation businesses so genuine entrepreneurship is still encouraged. 

In simple terms:

Australia needs to be careful not to solve a housing affordability problem by damaging innovation, risk-taking and long-term wealth creation through business building.