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

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

May 26, 2025

Duration

1h 35m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Airwallex is the most insane story in startups. Jack Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex, one of the world’s fastest-growing global payments and financial infrastructure companies. Since founding the company in 2015, Jack has scaled Airwallex to over $100B in annual payment volume, $360M in run-rate gross profit, and a global team of 1,500+ employees. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over $900M from investors including Square Peg, Lone Pine, and Tencent. ---------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:03 From Lemon Factory and Petrol Station to Billionaire: The Early Days 11:39 $5M Side Hustle While Working Full-time: How Jack Did It 23:14 Failing Three Times Before Product-Market-Fit 30:22 The Term Sheet That Got Pulled and Lost Matrix $1BN 35:28 Why We Rejected Stripe’s $1.2BN Acquisition Offer 51:37 0-$1B Transaction Volume in 9 Months: How Shein Saved Airwallex 01:15:52 When COVID Hit, They Lost 50% of Revenue Overnight 01:19:03 We F****** Up Scaling Internationally... & Burnt $200M/year 01:23:14 Why Jack is Taking Out a Line of Debt for $70M 01:24:00 The Truth About Secondaries and How Much is “Enough” 01:28:00 The Hiring Mistakes that Almost Broke the Culture ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Jack Zhang on X: https://twitter.com/awxjack Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #jackzhang #airwallex #founder #ceo

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Jack Zhang

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Jack Zhang and Harry Stebbings, Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder, Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN explores from Lemon Factory To Fintech Unicorn: Jack Zhang’s Relentless Ascent Jack Zhang, CEO and co‑founder of Airwallex, recounts his journey from financially insecure immigrant teenager in Australia working 16-hour menial shifts to building a multi‑product, global fintech platform approaching $1B+ in annual revenue. He describes a decade of side businesses that made him millions before Airwallex, multiple near‑death company moments, and turning a stranger’s $1M angel check into a stake now worth around $1B. The conversation covers failed product iterations, hard pivots, rejected term sheets, a declined $1.2B acquisition offer from Stripe, and the discipline learned after raising and burning hundreds of millions of dollars. Throughout, Zhang emphasizes resilience, founder quality over ideas, and his ambition to build an AWS‑like global financial infrastructure that can rival Citi or HSBC by 2035.

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