Airwallex: A Case Study of a Fintech Unicorn's Business Model

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Central Queensland University, Australia
MGMT20143- Think Big
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Airwallex

Executive summary
The assignment is summarising on one of the best Fintech Australian Company named as
Airwallex. The company offers the best services mainly to entrepreneurs through which they can
control their international transactions. The company aims to implement new payment
procedures such as by developing Web app and API mostly to business entrepreneurs which help
them to manage their transactions. The company was established in 2015 in Melbourne, now at
present, the company offers its services in more than 130 countries. The company has entered in
the Unicorn club at where the company has developed its financial value at more than $ 1 billion.
The main motive of the company is to develop its customer segment where investors can manage
their funds and security by analysing the rate of the interest.
By analysing the cash payment complexities faced by the entrepreneurs at international level, the
CEO of Airwallex Jack Zhang, Max Li, and Jacob Dai has analysed all the aspects related to the
complexities and develop payment artificial and technical procedures where the customer can set
its EMV card and can access payment method at international level. The company has developed
one of the best payment procedures which offer secure and successful payment transactions. In
2017, the company has developed its financial value to $ 26 million by adding two more
investors through which company leads to a face value of $ 140 million.
The Airwallex system protects the data related to fund and develop effective authentication
process. Along with this, the company has developed a flexible bespoke process which can be
controlled by API's systems through using artificial intelligence and effective technical methods.

Table of Contents
Executive summary.......................................................................................................................2
Introduction....................................................................................................................................4
Business model canvas...................................................................................................................4
Value propositions.....................................................................................................................4
Key activities..............................................................................................................................5
Channels.....................................................................................................................................5
Cost structure.............................................................................................................................5
Key resources.............................................................................................................................5
Customer relationship...............................................................................................................5
Revenue streams........................................................................................................................5
Key partners...............................................................................................................................6
Customer segments....................................................................................................................6
Interrelationship............................................................................................................................7
Critical success factors..................................................................................................................7
Downside risks:..............................................................................................................................7
Business model changes:...............................................................................................................8
Conclusion:.....................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................8
Appendix.........................................................................................................................................9
Airwallex Business model canvas.............................................................................................9
References.....................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2015 is Fintech Company that offers effective
payment procedures especially to business operators. The company offers Web app process
through which the entrepreneurs can manage and control their payment transactions at the
international level. From 2016 the company has developed its four main headquarters in
Australia, China, UK and in the USA. Along with this, the company enhances its market growth
by enhancing its business in more than 130 countries (Airwallex, 2019). The company has
developed its more than 1500 distributive channels such as Amazon, Order plus, Shein and etc,
with the help of this distributive channel the company has successfully delivered its payment
methods to its customers globally. Along with this essential key partner of the company has
developed great customer segments of the company globally. The company aims to reduce the
complexities regarding payment transaction not only at national level but at the international
level. Beside to entrepreneurs, the company has developed EMV payment systems for local users
through which they can pay their money without facing any cash complexities (Airwallex, 2019).
Business model canvas
The success of any business depends on its business model which contain 9 business approaches.
For maintaining sustainable growth of Airwallex the company has developed its effective
approaches with the help of distributive channels, key partners and by providing quality of
services to its customers to maintain effective customer relationship through which company has
developed its market (Onken, & Campeau, 2016). The business model approach of Airwallex is
analysed below:
Value propositions
The company has developed its effective value proposition in the market by developing and
enhancing the high-speed control on payment transactions at an international level. Apart from
this the company has developed visibility and maintained proper control of the funds. The
customer can manage their investment by special artificial advisor assigned by Airwallex.

Key activities
The main key activities of the company are to develop high volume scalability at the time of
payment at the international level. Along with this, the company offers API's to its customers
through which they can invest in funds in the international market. It also analyses all risk factors
at the time of making international payments.
Channels
Airwallex is one of the largest Fintech companies in the world that provides payment transaction
in the market. The company offers payment methods in more than 130 countries through which it
has gained its market value to $ 1 billion. The distribution channels help in providing services to
the customers globally through which the company has developed its market globally. The main
distribution channels of the Airwallex are Shein, Soufeel, Order plus, Tencent and Amazon.
These are the main distribution channels of the Airwallex (Russel, 2019).
Cost structure
The Airwallex has developed effective cost structure for its customers such as for business
operators the investors have to pay 12.50 % of each Airwallex transactions and for users 8% of
each Airwallex transactions. It can be analysed from the cost structure of the Airwallex that
consumers and investors can use payments structures of Airwallex and transfers their funds at
low-cost charges at international level (Airwallex, 2019).
Key resources
The essential key resources of Airwallex are financial resources which are functioned and
managed by the investors and key partners of the company. along with this, the technical
resources are essential key resources by which company can develop and implement effective
payment methods such as API and Web app (Russel, 2019).
Customer relationship
The Airwallex has maintained effective customer relationship by providing services to global
customers at low-cost charges and at less time.
Revenue streams
In 2015 the company has only one main branch in Melbourne, but after making agreements with
international investors company has developed its more revenue resources. In 2016 the company

has revenue income of $ 200,000 then it increases to $ 300,000 in 2017 and it increases to $
500,000 in 2018. Thus international investors help in increasing market growth of the company
globally (Airwallex, 2019).
Key partners
The essential key partners of Airwallex are Railsback, the main key partners of the Sequoia
Capital China, and Horizon Ventures.
Customer segments
As from the above key business approaches of Airwallex it is analysed that company has
developed effective customer segments. The company has developed its effective customer
segments by implementing international onboarding processes. The main customer segments of
the company are Tencent Holding Company from the UK, Hillhouse Capital management
from USA and Sequoia Capital from China.

Interrelationship
Airwallex which is a big organization in the field of payment transaction solutions. Covering 130
countries to date, started in Melbourne the company has gained a good success. It is important to
understand that the transfer strategies and methods which helps in ease out the payment's
transactions. The organization has gained a profit of about 1 million dollars and has established
well in the financial aspects. Interrelationship is very important to gain an extra edge over the
customer's segments of the organization (Campisano, 2012).
There is some kind of apps and API's which are developed nowadays by airwallex to make a
centralized payment solution to the electronic process. The system of security made at the
international level used to verify certain additional services to improve the situation of the
market. To improve such an effective relationship between the financial and payment process of
the company. It has been noted that airwallex has a good increase in the market strategies, by
coordinating with some of the small businesses.
Critical success factors
The important airwallex factors are:
Advancement to an international level: Airwallex has started to develop payment solutions at
the international and national level also to increase the business using certain apps developed on
the web.
Advance use of artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is widely used in the organizations
and such intelligence is developed by certain payment processes developed by web apps used by
the operators.
Downside risks:
The entrepreneur has to take a risk in the development of certain business for the growth of the
market. each and every market has a risk factor which highly affecting the sustainable power.
The big drawback of airwallex is the failure of API’s which is a big problem created for the
transactions of the locals and they are trusting less now due to failure, hence it is important to
understand that the techniques and strategies made should include API as a risk factor involved
(Campisano, 2012).

Business model changes:
These models are important and are helpful for the business operators and consumers to get a
good amount of money in the business. Increasing such aspects will help to improve the retention
period of the consumers.
Conclusion:
The data analyzed in this segment is all based on the information been retender from the people
and their values. It can easily be concluded that the airwallex has a good amount of growth in the
market mainly because of the advanced payment processes in the business at both national and
international level of business.
Recommendations:
It enhances a high value of cost payment processes at a national and international level of
payments
It also helps in providing original access to the exchanges and its rates which the company
workers can manage the transactions.

Appendix
Airwallex Business model canvas

References
 Campisano, K. M. (2012). U.S. Patent No. 6,341,724. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
 Kahn, K. L., Keeler, E. B., Sherwood, M. J., Rogers, W. H., Draper, D., Bentow, S. S., ...
& Brook, R. H. (2014). Comparing outcomes of care before and after implementation of
the DRG-based prospective payment system. Jama, 264(15), 1984-1988.
 Bagheri, M., & Movahed, S. H. (2016, November). The effect of the Internet of Things
(IoT) on education business model. In 2016 12th International Conference on Signal-
Image Technology & Internet-Based Systems (SITIS) (pp. 435-441). IEEE.
 Onken, M., & Campeau, D. (2016). Lean startups: Using the business model canvas.
Journal of Case Studies, 34(1), 95-101.
 Handberg, Ø. N., & Angelsen, A. (2019). Pay little, get little; pay more, get a little more:
A framed forest experiment in Tanzania. Ecological Economics, 156, 454-467.
 Russel, J. (2019). Cross-border fintech startup Airwallex raises $100M at a valuation of
over $1B. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/25/airwallex-raises-100m/
 tezuka, M. (2019). DST Global leads series C round for financial technology startup
Airwallex. Retrieved from https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-
insights/trending/4ivjws-e2qgm7me05nw0za2
 Bailey, M. (2018). Airwallex in the money with $108m raise. Retrieved from
https://www.afr.com/technology/airwallex-in-the-money-with-108m-raise-20180626-
h11wca
 Airwallex. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.airwallex.com/en-US/