And if it was painful for them, they were willing to bet it was painful for other small business owners, too.
"We thought there must be something we could do," continued Liu, who, until that point in 2015, had been working in Melbourne as an investment banker.So, within months, the young friends quit their jobs and set to work combining their various expertise in software engineering, finance and architecture to build a "system for the companies of the future.
The system the group launched in 2016 allows users to set up overseas bank accounts for paying customers based in other countries. When users are ready to move that revenue back to their HQ, they can transfer it through the Airwallex system, which uses mid-market rates. That can reduce costs for users by as much as 90% based on traditional foreign exchange rates, according to the company, resulting in fees of less than 1%.Having invested a combined $1 million of their own savings and those of friends and families to get the project off the ground, Airwallex quickly attracted a slew of investments from high profile backers including Sequoia Capital, Tencent and Horizons Ventures.
The company's latest $100 million funding round, which was led in March by DST Global, an early investor in Airbnb and Spotify,That round closed in less than two months and took the five founders' estimated wealth toLucy LiuLiu said the new-found status should help the 320-strong team as it expands beyond its nine current offices in