Dive Brief:

• Airwallex has raised $200 million, giving the company a cash pile of $702 million and a new valuation of $4 billion, the Australian company said in a press release Monday. The fundraising round was led by Greenwich, Conn.-based Lone Pine Capital, following on a $100 million funding round in March.
• Melbourne-based Airwallex, which provides banks and other fintechs with payments, foreign exchange and card-issuing services, plans to use the new capital for geographic expansion in North America and Europe as well as adding more tools to its offering, said Toshi Kameoka, the company's North America head of strategy.
• In describing its growth, the company said that revenue more than doubled in the first half of the year on processing some $20 billion for clients, including sneaker-maker Goat; human resources and payments fintech Papaya Global; and digital trading company Stake. It also said that it has about 1,000 employees today in more than 20 locations worldwide.

Dive Insight:

The "three pillars" of Airwallex's business is providing treasury and foreign exchange services, card-issuing and payment acceptance, Kameoka said in an interview.

While rivals may offer some of those same services, it distinguishes itself from the competition by offering all of its services in multiple currencies, he said.

The company was initially built its business around foreign exchange, following the co-founders' challenges in formerly launching an Australian coffee shop with resources from around the world. Later, it expanded to providing the other software tools.

Some of its rivals include fintech darling Stripe, a company with dual Dublin-San Francisco headquarters that achieved a $95 billion-valuation earlier this year. Despite Airwallex's smaller size, the two companies have "similar aspirations," Kameoka said.

Playing on its cross-border capabilities, Airwallex's edge is that it's already providing its services in multiple currencies in Hong Kong, Australia and the United Kingdom and it's starting up a pilot next month for such services in the U.S., with plans for the same in the European Union soon, he said.

The company also expects to expand in the Middle East and Africa, he added.

While the company has catered to small and mid-sized businesses, Kameoka said that Airwallex is focused on meeting the needs of larger companies too.

He declined to name any U.S.-based business clients. The company counts the investment arm of sales titan Salesforce among its investors, but a spokesperson for Airwallex said Salesforce is not currently a customer.  

The company's main U.S. office is in San Francisco and it currently has 42 employees in U.S., with plans to hire more, including building out its research and development hub, Kameoka said.

Despite the company's original FX focus, Kameoka emphasized that Airwallex is also focused on providing and creating tools for domestic use cases and will tap its new capital to expand such product features, some of which the company expects to bring to market later this year.