Once close enough for an acquisition, Stripe and Airwallex are now going after each other

Stripe made a $1.2 billion acquisition offer to Airwallex in 2018 when the startup had only $2 million in annualized revenue, personally pitched by Sequoia investor Michael Moritz. Founder Jack Zhang declined to pursue his vision of building proprietary global financial infrastructure independent of other payment processors. The decision looks increasingly prescient: Airwallex now claims $1.3+ billion in annualized revenue with 85% YoY growth and 90 financial licenses across 50 markets—roughly double Stripe's regulatory footprint.