Airwallex is betting that a growing share of future payments will be initiated by software rather than people. The payments company has raised $320 million at an $11 billion valuation as it develops a consumer wallet that would let AI agents make purchases within agreed limits.
The Series H was led by returning investor Addition, with backing from Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, Hedosophia, Haun Ventures and Amex Ventures.
It values Airwallex almost 38 per cent higher than its previous funding round in December 2025, when the company raised $330 million at an $8 billion valuation.
Airwallex will use the capital to develop products for what it calls autonomous finance and agentic commerce, while expanding its infrastructure, licences and teams into additional markets.
“A decade ago, we did not know exactly what the agentic economy would look like, but we built a foundation for it,” said co-founder and chief executive Jack Zhang.
“The licences, local network integrations and settlement rails we spent ten years constructing are precisely the kind of infrastructure it needs.”
Giving AI agents permission to spend
Airi, a new consumer wallet, is the clearest example of how Airwallex plans to use that infrastructure.
The wallet will initially include Airwallex’s existing one-click checkout function. Over the coming months, the company plans to add delegated payments, spending limits, permission controls and multi-currency balances.
Those features would enable a customer to give an AI agent authority to complete a purchase without handing it unrestricted access to their money.
A consumer could, for example, permit an agent to book travel within a set budget or renew an approved service, with the wallet controlling how much it could spend and in which currencies.
Airwallex plans to connect Airi with its Agentic Commerce Suite, which provides the merchant side of the transaction. The combination is intended to give businesses a way to accept purchases initiated by AI agents while allowing customers to set the terms under which those agents can act.
Airi represents a notable move for a company mainly associated with business accounts, cross-border payments, corporate cards and spend management.
Airwallex said its one-click checkout increased successful conversions by as much as 14 per cent during early merchant testing. It has not yet published more detail about the size or structure of that trial.
The more advanced agent-payment functions are also still under development rather than available to customers today.
Automating the finance department
Airwallex is simultaneously developing T:0, an AI platform intended to manage a company’s financial operations from the point at which it begins trading.
The company says the product will automate bookkeeping, forecasting, tax, compliance and reporting, providing founders with up-to-date accounts without requiring them to migrate from another system later.
T:0 is currently in private beta, with wider access expected in the coming weeks.
The two products extend Airwallex in different directions. T:0 puts automation inside the business finance function, while Airi gives software agents a route to initiate purchases.
That strategy builds on Airwallex’s recent acquisition of financial data platform Leapfin, which specialises in revenue recognition and reconciliation. Airwallex acquired the company earlier in June as part of its effort to cover more of the financial lifecycle.
Lee Fixel of Addition said Airwallex’s existing payment and regulatory network gave it an advantage over companies attempting to add financial services after developing an AI product.
“As AI transforms the competitive landscape, the winners will be the companies building on top of real financial infrastructure, not around it,” he said.
Revenue reaches $1.3bn annualised
Airwallex reported $1.3 billion in annualised revenue in March 2026, an increase of 74 per cent year on year.
Annualised transaction volume rose by more than 120 per cent to $287 billion. The company said more than 90 per cent of revenue now comes from customers using more than one of its products.
It serves more than 676,000 businesses directly or through platforms that use Airwallex infrastructure to provide financial products to their own customers.
Airwallex has also expanded its regulatory footprint to more than 85 licences across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
That network is central to its agentic commerce proposition. Payments initiated by software still need to pass through regulated entities, comply with local rules and settle in the currencies used by buyers and merchants.
Airwallex’s regulatory controls remain under examination in Australia, where AUSTRAC ordered an external audit in January over concerns about possible shortcomings in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing programme.
The company said it was cooperating fully and remained confident that its systems and controls were fit for purpose. The audit is not a finding that Airwallex breached the law.
Former EMEA head returns as CFO
The funding announcement followed Airwallex’s appointment of Pranav Sood as chief financial officer.
Sood returns after working at Bain Capital’s growth equity fund, where he focused on technology companies in the UK and Europe.
During his earlier period at Airwallex, he led the development of its EMEA business and helped establish its global marketing function. He will now oversee finance, corporate development and operations from London.
Zhang said the company wanted a CFO who could act as “a commercial strategist as much as a financial steward”.
The appointment comes as Airwallex commits more capital to expansion and develops products outside its established business payments offering.
Its immediate agentic commerce proposition remains more limited than that ambition may suggest. Airi will begin with one-click checkout, while delegated agent payments, spending controls and permission settings are scheduled to follow over the coming months.
