Business 4 min read By Alice Ashford
Airwallex president says company aims to be IPO-ready by end of year
Airwallex president Lucy Liu says the payments company still plans to be ready for a public listing by the end of the year, but timing remains uncertain amid a crowded IPO market and political scrutiny in the US.
Airwallex, the Australian-born payments company serving more than 675,000 businesses, still intends to be ready for an initial public offering by the end of the year, but its president has signalled that market conditions are not yet right for a listing.
Lucy Liu, who joined the company as a co-founder in 2015, said in an interview that Airwallex remains focused on becoming «IPO-ready», but acknowledged that «it’s just not the best time, given how complicated things are». The comments come as the company reports over $1 billion in annualised run rate revenue and continues to expand into new markets including Mexico, South Korea, Brazil and the United States.
The cautious tone reflects a broader slowdown in public listings. 2026 has already seen two major debuts — SpaceX’s $85.7 billion listing and SK Hynix’s $26.5 billion ADR sale — with a potential third from Anthropic. In Asia, ChangXin Memory Technologies raised $9.8 billion in Shanghai, while Alibaba tapped Hong Kong’s equity markets for a $10 billion share sale. Smaller companies, even those with strong growth profiles, risk being overlooked as large investors conserve capital.
Other startups have delayed their plans. Travel platform Klook filed for a New York IPO last November, originally scheduling it for the end of 2025, then pushing it to early 2026. The company has remained quiet on the matter since. Liu noted that investors are increasingly favouring later-stage opportunities. «It’s not that they don’t have capital. They just want to see success, right? They want to see a track record before they deploy capital into that particular company,» she said.
Airwallex has raised substantial private funding, securing $330 million in December and a further $320 million in June in a Series H round. Liu said the company wants «to have enough capital to fast-charge our plans» as it moves into agentic commerce and automated bookkeeping. The company recently relocated its headquarters from Australia to Singapore and San Francisco, a shift Liu said was driven by the need to support its push into the US market.
That expansion has not been without friction. In November, venture capitalist Keith Rabois, who sits on the board of competitor Ramp, described Airwallex as a «Chinese backdoor into sensitive American data». Senator Tom Cotton echoed the claim, saying the startup’s «ties to Communist China run deep» and calling for a CFIUS investigation. Airwallex has rejected the accusations. CEO Jack Zhang has called them «false», noting that China-based staff cannot access US data and that third-party firms were hired to audit its data security practices.
Liu pointed to previous statements by the company in response to the allegations. The political scrutiny adds another layer of uncertainty to any potential listing timeline, though the company’s founders appear willing to wait for conditions to improve.
There are risks in delaying too long. Fashion retailer Shein has seen its valuation cut by 75%, while Airtable, which never went public, sold at an 80% discount to Bending Spoons. Airwallex can afford to wait, Liu suggested, but not indefinitely.
