Airwallex raises $100M at a flat $5.5B valuation

Airwallex, a Melbourne, Australia-based cross-border payments startup, raised $100 million in new funding from existing investors.

Why it matters: In a challenging fundraising environment, flat is the new up when it comes to late-stage startup valuations.

Details: The financing is an extension to Airwallex's Series E round, announced last September, and maintains a flat $5.5 billion valuation.

• Existing investors Square Peg, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, Lone Pine Capital, Hermitage Capital, 1835i Ventures and Tencent participated.
• They were joined by Australian superannuation fund HostPlus and an unnamed North American pension fund.

Between the lines: 2022 has not been kind to the late-stage startup market, as many companies have been forced to raise down rounds or bridge rounds at flat valuations.

• Airwallex says its customer base has more than doubled and revenue has increased by 184% year-over-year — but its valuation has not budged since its last raise.
• “Last year, it took two weeks to raise $100 million,” Airwallex CEO Jack Zhang said in an interview with TechCrunch. “This year, it took four months. We think it was a good outcome that we were able to raise the money at all.”

Of note: Airwallex has raised more than $900 million since being founded in 2015.