{"id":6318,"date":"2026-08-31T10:27:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6318"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:27:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:27:48","slug":"airwallex-president-lucy-liu-on-the-companys-plans-to-be-ipo-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6318","title":{"rendered":"Airwallex president Lucy Liu on the company\u2019s plans to be \u2018IPO-ready\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a recent conversation for our new Asia Agenda <\/em>series, president Lucy Liu told me that the firm still plans to be \u201cIPO-ready\u201d by the end of the year, but added that it\u2019s \u201cjust not the best time, given how complicated things are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Women only accounted for 26% of hires in jobs with AI skills\u2014and they could be missing out on a $100K salary difference<\/a><\/p>\n

One can\u2019t blame her for thinking that way. 2026 already boasts two key IPOs\u2014SpaceX\u2019s $85.7 billion debut and SK Hynix\u2019s $26.5 billion ADR sale\u2014and potentially a third in Anthropic\u2019s. (OpenAI is reportedly considering a debut in 2027.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

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And it\u2019s not just the U.S. Shanghai has already had one blockbuster IPO, in ChangXin Memory Technologies\u2019 $9.8 billion listing. And Alibaba just tapped Hong Kong\u2019s equity markets for a $10 billion share sale.<\/p>\n

A smaller company\u2013even one as buzzy as Airwallex\u2013might get lost in the shuffle as bigger investors hold on to their cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other startups have delayed their IPO plans. Travel platform Klook filed for a New York IPO last November. The company originally scheduled it for the end of 2025, then delayed it until early 2026, and has remained studiously quiet since then. (Klook\u2019s founder Ethan Lin declined to comment on the company\u2019s IPO plans when my colleague Angelica Ang spoke to him earlier this year.)<\/p>\n

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But it\u2019s also not clear that companies like Airwallex need to go public right now. The company raised $330 million in December, and then raised another $320 million in June. \u201cWe just want to be able to have enough capital to fast-charge our plans,\u201d Liu told me, as the company barrels into agentic commerce and automated bookkeeping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors are going more towards later-stage investments,\u201d Liu added. \u201cIt\u2019s not that they don\u2019t have capital. They just want to see success, right? They want to see a track record before they deploy capital into that particular company.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Airwallex\u2019s June funding round was a \u201cSeries H\u201d round, which isn\u2019t that ridiculous in the world of tech anymore. Databricks is reportedly putting together a Series M round, amid social media jokes that these funding rounds are soon going to run out of letters.<\/p>\n

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Liu\u2019s story with Airwallex starts in 2015, when she met fellow cofounders Jack Zhang and Max Li; she eventually offered them $1 million in seed capital, twice what they\u2019d asked for. She noted to me that she had a \u201cbit of an overconfidence situation\u201d at the start: \u201cI would be on a plane almost every other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Now, the company is pushing into markets like Mexico, South Korea, Brazil and, importantly, the U.S. It recently moved its headquarters from Australia\u2014which Liu admitted is \u201cquite small\u201d for companies thinking of going global\u2014to Singapore and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

That headquarters shift is meant to help its path into the U.S., which hasn\u2019t entirely been smooth. Last November, venture capitalist Keith Rabois (who sits on the board of Ramp, a competitor) called Airwallex a \u201cChinese backdoor into sensitive American data.\u201d That accusation got picked up by Senator Tom Cotton, who claimed the startup\u2019s \u201cties to Communist China run deep,\u201d and called for a CFIUS investigation.<\/p>\n

Read more I\u2019m the \u2018dean of innovation\u2019 and I know that nobody can agree what \u2018innovation\u2019 actually means<\/a><\/p>\n

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Airwallex has pushed back against the claims. CEO Jack Zhang has called them \u201cfalse,\u201d noted that its China-based staff can\u2019t access U.S. data, and added that third-party companies were hired to audit its data security practices. (Liu, in our conversation, pointed to previous statements by Airwallex.)<\/p>\n

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So, Zhang, Liu, and Airwallex\u2019s cofounders can probably afford to wait until things settle down before getting an IPO on the calendar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a risk in waiting too long: Just look at Shein, and the 75% haircut it\u2019s taking on its valuation\u2014or Airtable, which never went public and sold at an 80% discount to Bending Spoons. Airwallex can afford to wait, but perhaps not forever.<\/p>\n

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See you tomorrow,<\/p>\n

@nickrigordon
nicholas.gordon@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter\u00a0here.<\/p>\n

Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter.<\/em> Subscribe here.<\/p>\n

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OTHERS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>BitGo<\/b> acquired the institutional trading business of <\/span>NYDIG<\/b>, a New York City-based digital asset infrastructure company. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Vanguard<\/b> agreed to acquire <\/span>Altruist<\/b>, a Culver City, Calif.-based wealth technology and custody platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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IPOs<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Electra<\/b> Therapeutics<\/b>, a South San Francisco-based developer of therapies for immune-mediated diseases and cancer, filed to go public on the Nasdaq. <\/span>OrbiMed<\/b>, <\/span>Westlake<\/b> BioPartners<\/b>, <\/span>Redmile<\/b> Biopharma<\/b>, <\/span>Aventis<\/b>, <\/span>LSP 7 Co\u00f6peratief<\/b>, and <\/span>New<\/b> Leaf<\/b> Ventures<\/b> back the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>MGU<\/b> Bamboo<\/b> Insurance<\/b> Services<\/b>, a Midvale, Utah-based underwriter for homeowners\u2019 insurance, filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. <\/span>CVC<\/b> and <\/span>White<\/b> Mountains<\/b> back the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

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FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>a16z<\/b>, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm, raised $1.1 billion for its new Machine Age Fund focused on computer infrastructure for AI.<\/span><\/p>\n

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– <\/span>LGT Capital Partners<\/b>, a Pf\u00e4ffikon, Switzerland-based alternative asset investment manager, raised \u20ac850 million ($985 million) for its seventh Crown Europe Small Buyouts fund focused on European small-buyout funds and emerging managers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Why the head of Taiwan\u2019s stock exchange wants you to look past TSMC\u2014and embrace the \u2018technology island\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The company, which claims to have over $1 billion in annualized run rate revenue, once talked about having a U.S. IPO in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-term-sheet"],"yoast_head":"\nAirwallex president Lucy Liu on the company\u2019s plans to be \u2018IPO-ready\u2019 - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=6318\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Airwallex president Lucy Liu on the company\u2019s plans to be \u2018IPO-ready\u2019 - 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