He Turned Down $1.2 Billion From Stripe. Now His Company Is Worth $8 Billion

Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, helped build one of the world’s fastest-growing fintech companies, now valued at $8 billion and generating more than $1 billion in annual recurring revenue. Born in Qingdao, China, Zhang moved to Australia alone at 15. When his family’s finances collapsed, he worked 16-hour days in factories, restaurants and petrol stations to pay his tuition — a work ethic that later shaped his entrepreneurial push. After making millions from side businesses in his 20s, Zhang felt unfulfilled. A frustrating payment issue at his Melbourne coffee shop led him and a group of friends to identify a larger problem: slow, expensive international transfers built on outdated infrastructure. In 2015, they founded Airwallex to rebuild cross-border payments from the ground up. Just three years later, Irish-American financial services company Stripe offered to acquire Airwallex for $1.2 billion, but the founders turned the offer down. The years that followed brought turbulence, including fraud losses and Covid-related revenue hits. Watch the video above to learn about how Jack Zhang and the Airwallex team recovered from that tumultuous period. #CNBC #CNBCMakeIt #Entrepreneur #Fintech ----- Subscribe: @cnbci CNBC International Live: @cnbcinternationalive LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/cnbc-international/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cnbci Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cnbcinternational Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cnbcinternational/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@cnbcinternational X: https://twitter.com/CNBCi Telegram: https://t.me/cnbci WhatsApp: https://bit.ly/CNBCiWhatsApp