{"id":639682,"date":"2026-04-30T03:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639682\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T03:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:05:14","slug":"under-fire-airwallex-turns-to-australias-youngest-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639682\/","title":{"rendered":"Under fire, Airwallex turns to Australia\u2019s youngest founders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

April 30, 2026 \u2014 12:00pm<\/p>\n

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Airwallex co-founder Lucy Liu will on Thursday unveil a program offering young Australian artificial intelligence founders $100,000 in equity-free capital, as the global payments giant moves to deepen its local roots while navigating a financial crimes investigation and a stalled run at a public listing.<\/p>\n

The initiative, called Latitude 37 and named after Melbourne\u2019s latitude, will back at least 10 founders aged 25 and under each year with cash grants, mentorship and immersion trips to Singapore and San Francisco. Liu will announce the program at the Sunrise tech conference at Carriageworks in Sydney, with applications opening in late May.<\/p>\n

\"Airwallex\u2019sAirwallex\u2019s co-founder and president Lucy Liu.Louis Trerise<\/p>\n

The launch comes as more than $1 billion a day flows through Airwallex\u2019s network. The company, valued at $US8 billion ($12 billion) after a late-stage funding round in December and dual-headquartered in Singapore and San Francisco, posted $US61 billion in payments volume in the final quarter of 2025, more than doubling its volume from a year earlier. Its largest backers include Australian venture firms Square Peg Capital, Blackbird Ventures and AirTree Ventures, alongside Chinese internet giant Tencent.<\/p>\n

Airwallex was started in 2015 by chief executive Jack Zhang, Liu and three university friends, after Zhang grew frustrated with the cost of paying overseas suppliers for a Melbourne coffee shop, Tukk & Co, he ran with co-founder Max Li. The fintech has since built a global payments platform that sidesteps the legacy SWIFT system, and counts Qantas, Canva and Culture Amp among more than 250,000 business customers.<\/p>\n

Liu, who leads the company\u2019s social impact program, said the focus on under-25s reflected a gap in the local ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real category-defining ideas usually come from founders who are closer to the beginning of their journey,\u201d Liu said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about excluding experienced founders, it\u2019s more about addressing a gap, as there are a lot less pathways for young founders to access support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AirwallexAirwallex chief executive Jack Zhang said the new board appointments would bring governance and business expertise.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Liu said nearly 40 per cent of Australian early-stage capital was now coming from overseas investors, a trend she described as a balance issue rather than a categorical problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf most early-stage capital comes from overseas, there\u2019s a risk that decision-making, networks and long-term value creation shift offshore,\u201d she said. \u201cWe should be trying to keep as much here if we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The launch lands at a fraught moment for one of Australia\u2019s most valuable private tech companies. In January, financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC ordered an external audit of Airwallex\u2019s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing program<\/a> \u2013 at the company\u2019s own expense \u2013 after concerns its platform was being used by so-called money mules, accounts of people knowingly or unknowingly co-opted to move illicit profits.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Airwallex<\/a><\/p>\n

AUSTRAC said it had \u201creasonable grounds to suspect\u201d Airwallex had contravened multiple sections of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act. The watchdog\u2019s deputy chief executive Katie Miller said payment platforms had become an attractive vector for criminals because of their speed and frictionless onboarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the things that make the service attractive to legitimate users are, unfortunately, the things that make it attractive to money-launderers and criminals,\u201d Miller told this masthead at the time. \u201cWe do see this as a high-risk channel to move illicit funds in and out of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audit is progressing in line with the regulator\u2019s timeframes, AUSTRAC has indicated, with the auditor\u2019s report due to inform what, if any, further action it takes. The report will not be made public.<\/p>\n

\"ReserveReserve Bank of Australia director Elana Rubin.Oscar Colman<\/p>\n

In the months since, Airwallex has hired global PR firm Sefiani, sought to recruit influencers on platforms including Partnar to amplify Zhang\u2019s \u201cthought leadership\u201d, and engaged law firm Mark O\u2019Brien Legal to demand the Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review take down five articles based on leaked internal documents. The articles remain online.<\/p>\n

Asked for an update on the audit, Liu declined to comment in detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AUSTRAC audit is ongoing, so I can\u2019t really comment, other than to say that we have co-operated fully with the auditor and regulator,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The investigation has clouded the company\u2019s path to a public market debut. Zhang told CNBC in 2024 that Airwallex would be \u201cIPO-ready\u201d within two years, but walked back that framing on LinkedIn after the AUSTRAC order, writing the company \u201cnever planned to do an IPO this year, or even next year\u201d.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Liu echoed that position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t a fixed IPO timeline. The focus is on being IPO ready rather than committing to a specific date,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In early April, Airwallex appointed Reserve Bank of Australia director Elana Rubin as chair of a new local oversight board, alongside former New Zealand prime minister Sir Bill English. Liu insisted the appointments were not a direct response to AUSTRAC.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppointing someone of Elana\u2019s calibre is really a signal of our business maturing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really about AUSTRAC. It\u2019s about improving our governance as we scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Airwallex is officially domiciled in the Cayman Islands and relocated its global headquarters to Singapore in 2023, before designating San Francisco as a second global headquarters in December.<\/p>\n

Asked what she would tell a young founder weighing up whether to build in Australia, given Airwallex\u2019s offshore structure, Liu pushed back at the framing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t \u2018leave\u2019 Australia. We\u2019re still deeply rooted there with a large team and ongoing investment,\u201d she said. \u201cMy honest advice to a young founder is to build where you have the best talent, network and early momentum, and for many people that can absolutely be Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latitude 37 builds on more than $5 million Airwallex has committed to the University of Melbourne. Tech Council of Australia interim chief executive Lucinda Longcroft said the program would \u201caccelerate emerging talent and strengthen the pipeline of globally competitive companies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"DavidDavid Swan<\/a> is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 30, 2026 \u2014 12:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-639682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}