Jack Zhang

CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex

Claims

As speaker

Mentioned in

Key positions and views

Only the brands of the top five venture capital firms, like Sequoia, provide a meaningful competitive advantage in hiring and business development.

A long-term, independent vision is preferable to a lucrative short-term exit, as demonstrated by rejecting a ~$1.2 billion acquisition offer from Stripe to continue building the company.

Employees from traditional banking backgrounds often lack the essential traits of curiosity, determination, and resilience needed to succeed in a fast-paced startup environment.

Founders should have significant conviction and skin in the game, exemplified by his decision to take on $70 million in personal debt with co-founders to buy secondary shares from early investors.

The ultimate ambition is to disrupt and surpass the largest incumbent financial institutions, aiming for Airwallex to become a bigger business than global banks like Citi or HSBC.

Podcast consensus on Zhang

Points of consensus

▶Jack Zhang's narrative consistently emphasizes resilience, detailing how Airwallex overcame multiple near-failures, including a 50% revenue drop during COVID-19, a pulled term sheet from SoftBank, and early product-market fit issues.Mar 2026

▶Zhang maintains a long-term, highly ambitious vision for Airwallex, substantiated by the decision to reject a ~$1.2 billion acquisition offer from Stripe and the stated goal of surpassing global banks like HSBC or Citi.Mar 2026

▶The company's fundraising journey is consistently portrayed as a progression from early rejections by local Australian VCs to successfully securing capital from elite global investors like Sequoia, Tencent, and DST Global.

▶Zhang consistently highlights Airwallex's explosive growth trajectory, citing metrics like maintaining over 100% annual growth for eight years, reaching $1 billion in transaction volume in nine months, and achieving profitability in 2023.Mar 2026

Points of debate

▶While celebrating hyper-growth, Zhang also acknowledges its costs, noting the company's headcount expanded from 100 to nearly 700 in one year, which coincided with a massive annual burn rate of close to $200 million in 2022.Mar 2026

▶Zhang's account highlights a contrast between early strategic failures—such as the abandoned P2P model, a failed SME invoicing tool, and a premature international expansion—and the company's later successful pivot and rapid scaling.

▶The relationship with key investor Tencent is presented with nuance; despite Tencent's crucial early investment, its founder Pony Ma initially blocked the deal, and its WeChat Pay division ultimately built its own competing infrastructure.Mar 2026

▶Zhang's perspective on the venture capital landscape is complex; while he states only top-tier VC brands provide a real advantage, his company's survival was ensured by a Series A extension from a less globally-recognized firm, Square Peg, after being rejected by others.Mar 2026

Key themes

▶The Gauntlet of Fundraising

Zhang's narrative details a difficult but ultimately successful fundraising journey, marked by early rejections from local Australian VCs, a rescinded term sheet, and a major pull-out by SoftBank. This was overcome by securing elite global investors like Sequoia, Tencent, and DST Global, often at critical moments when the company was running out of capital.

This demonstrates that founder persistence and a global outlook can overcome initial local market skepticism, and that a company's funding narrative can be as compelling as its product narrative for attracting top-tier backers.

▶Pivots, Failures, and Product-Market FitMar 2026

Airwallex's path was not linear. Zhang recounts abandoning the initial P2P model, the failure of an early SME invoicing tool due to high acquisition costs, and a premature international expansion, all before finding a successful strategy.

This highlights the importance of iterating and being willing to discard failing strategies, even after significant investment, in the search for true product-market fit, which for Airwallex came from focusing on a different customer segment and product set.

▶Extreme Ambition and Long-Term VisionMar 2026

Zhang's claims are defined by a high level of ambition, from rejecting a ~$1.2 billion acquisition offer from Stripe to his stated goal for Airwallex to surpass global banks like Citi or HSBC. This long-term view is further supported by the decision to invest the majority of a $100M funding round into products that wouldn't generate revenue for years.

Zhang operates with a 'go big or go home' mentality, prioritizing potential market dominance over a quick, lucrative exit, a mindset that attracts investors looking for massive outlier returns.

▶Hyper-Growth and its ConsequencesMar 2026

The claims paint a picture of explosive growth, with revenue growing from $2M in 2018 to a $700M ARR run-rate by early 2024 and headcount ballooning from 100 to ~700 in a single year. This hyper-growth was accompanied by a significant burn rate, reaching nearly $200 million in 2022, before the company reached profitability in 2023.

This illustrates the classic venture-backed 'blitzscaling' model, where massive capital infusion is used to capture market share rapidly, accepting huge operational costs and risks with the expectation of future profitability and market leadership.

Source episodes

Timeline

2015-2017

Founds Airwallex, secures a $1M angel investment, gets rejected by Australian VCs, and raises a Series A from Sequoia and Tencent with no revenue.

End of 2017

Faces a near-death experience running out of money before securing a crucial $6 million Series A extension led by Square Peg Capital.

2018-2019

Onboards major customer Shein, grows revenue from $2M to $10M, and rejects a ~$1.2 billion acquisition offer from Stripe. A planned funding round led by SoftBank falls through after the WeWork IPO failure.

Early 2020

Experiences a 50% drop in revenue at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic but recovers to double 2019 revenue for the year. Raises a $150M Series D round.

2021

Raises $400 million across multiple rounds, with the company's valuation increasing from $1.7 billion to $5.5 billion within the year.

2022-2023

Manages a high annual burn rate of nearly $200 million in 2022 before successfully steering the company to profitability in 2023.

2024

Projects $450 million in gross profit for the year and closes a new funding round at a $6.2 billion valuation, which includes previous Australian VC detractors.

Suggested prompts

How did the early rejections from Australian VCs shape Airwallex's global fundraising strategy and company culture? &nearr;Analyze the strategic rationale behind rejecting Stripe's ~$1.2B acquisition offer and the subsequent long-term impact on Airwallex's product development and market position. &nearr;What specific operational and cultural challenges did Airwallex likely face when scaling its headcount from 100 to 700 in a single year while managing a $200M burn rate? &nearr;Trace the evolution of Airwallex's business model from its initial failed concepts to achieving profitability, and identify the key inflection points that enabled its success. &nearr;

Key concepts

Fundraising 18 ep Revenue Growth 7 ep Company Valuation 7 ep Tencent 5 ep Stripe 4 ep Business Strategy & Pivots 4 ep Sequoia Capital 3 ep Venture Capital 3 ep SoftBank 2 ep DST Global 2 ep

Notable quotes

“We went to like $500 million AR in August last year, then hit like 600 in november 700 in january fab”

Jack, Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder · Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN

“rejected like acquisition offer from stripe um you know for close to 1.2 billion dollars”

Jack, Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder · Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN

“Airtree and Blackbird rejected us multiple times and they now joined, they wrote the largest check at $6.2 billion ever in our history.”

Jack, Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder · Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN

Report last updated: Apr 21, 2026

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