1 Million Investment Yields Over 1 Billion Returns: Airwallex Co-founder Liu Yueting Recaps Key Life Investments

Article | Xu Tan

Editor | Su Yang

Achieving a lifetime of wealth and career success with a single investment, the story of “the luckiest post-90s entrepreneur” Liu Yueting (Lucy Liu) may be a tale about vision, courage, opportunity, and rewriting the rules.

Co-founder and President of Airwallex, Lucy Liu

Liu Yueting’s first investment in her life was to go all-in on one track, which yielded a thousandfold return.

In 2015, at age 25, she met Melbourne University alumni Jack Zhang (co-founder and CEO of Airwallex) and Max Li (co-founder of Airwallex) in Melbourne. Jack Zhang complained that cross-border procurement and currency exchange costs for his coffee shop were high, and it would be better to start a business to create a better payment solution.

Liu Yueting keenly identified pain points in the traditional cross-border payment chain, and disruptive business revolutions may begin with deep insights into these pain points.

When I spoke with Jack Zhang in 2025, he recounted this experience: When he had the idea to build a cross-border payment platform, he had no company, no product, only an idea. But Liu Yueting immediately decided to invest 1 million USD for a 20% stake, and the next day, she transferred the money—funds she originally planned to use for buying a house. Jack Zhang had never encountered such decisive investment behavior.

Related reading: Jack Zhang, Founder of Airwallex: Persisting in the Most Top-tier and Difficult Markets in Europe and America

Therefore, Airwallex was founded in 2015 by four Chinese entrepreneurs, with Liu Yueting as the only woman. She joined the company as a co-founder because she believed that investing in a company must be a venture she could also commit herself to.

By 2026, Airwallex had completed Series G funding led by Addition, T. Rowe Price, Activant, among others, with a valuation of 8 billion USD. Liu Yueting’s 1 million USD investment returned over a thousand times. Based on this investment, in June 2025, the New Zealand “National Business Review” published a list of New Zealand’s wealthy, and 34-year-old Liu Yueting, with an estimated assets of 700 million NZD (about 3 billion RMB), ranked among the top women, earning her the nickname “New Zealand’s First Female Rich Person.”

In the male-dominated fintech industry, Liu Yueting is a unique presence. Initially, when meeting clients, the boss would listen to her and say, “You speak well, but I didn’t quite understand. Maybe next time your boss can come?”

She is young and beautiful, which can easily lead others to overlook her abilities. But in the company, she acts more like a “general manager,” handling finance, HR, marketing, branding, and more—she has rotated through various roles. “Even now, I see something unsatisfactory and feel the urge to jump in and do it myself,” Liu Yueting said.

Although Airwallex’s growth trajectory is seen as a grand narrative of reshaping the global financial system, initially, their goal was to build a more efficient, multi-currency, lower-cost cross-border payment platform to solve pain points for demand-driven enterprises. Because the traditional SWIFT system based on banks and USD clearing involves 5-6 intermediary banks, taking days and incurring high fees.

Airwallex obtained licenses in 80 countries/regions and expanded its multi-currency matrix. In just two years after founding, Airwallex had almost no revenue; the founding team chose to build infrastructure rather than focus on short-term profits. As a result, Airwallex’s business evolved from cross-border payments to a “global financial operating system.” Performance-wise, the company’s revenue grew from zero to 500 million USD in nine years, and from 500 million to 1 billion USD in just one year. Liu Yueting believes that all previous choices led to these results.

Today, Airwallex can open accounts for companies in over 70 countries/regions within 2 minutes. Over 200,000 companies including Minimax, Kimi, Zhipu, SHEIN, TikTok, JD.com are clients.

Liu Yueting strongly resists being labeled solely as a female executive, but she established a “Women Entrepreneurs Alliance” within Airwallex to find commonalities among women-led companies.

She also created a “Three-minute Rapid Rejection” mechanism to prevent female entrepreneurs from over-compromising.

Young, beautiful, wealthy. Jack Zhang sometimes curiously asks her, “What motivates you to work?” She believes curiosity and passion drive a person to never be satisfied with the status quo.

Below is an interview transcript between the author and Liu Yueting (Lucy Liu), co-founder and President of Airwallex:

01 The Most Critical Investment of My Life

Q: The public is very curious about you. Why, at such a young age, can you make such a pivotal investment? Where does this investment and financial acumen come from? Can you introduce yourself first?

Liu Yueting: I’ve seen some different guesses. My background isn’t very complicated. I was born in Northeast China. My father was involved in financial securities trading early on in China. In 1999, at age 8, I moved with my parents to Shanghai. After elementary school, my family immigrated to New Zealand, where I attended middle and high school. I skipped a grade in high school and in 2008, at 17, I was admitted to the University of Melbourne, studying business and finance for undergrad and graduate degrees. After graduation, I worked in finance.

I’ve been interested in stocks since I was young. I would often tap into my dad’s trading system. I knew from a young age that stocks starting with 600 were from Shanghai, and those starting with 000 were from Shenzhen.

My career path was very clear—whether in securities firms or banks, I knew the finance industry well. I started at a joint venture company as an ordinary investment advisor, then promoted to Director, ED, MD. Later, I resigned to travel and wanted to do investments, VC or PE. In 2015, I met some old friends and university classmates in Melbourne. Max Li (one of Airwallex’s co-founders) was running a coffee shop with Jack Zhang (another co-founder). We all loved coffee, and I visited their shop every day. The story then unfolded as Jack told it: we started talking about the initial idea for Airwallex, a tool similar to cross-border payments.

At that time, the cross-border industry was developing rapidly. We weren’t thinking of the company as complex as it is now, but through customer feedback, we made many product and strategic adjustments over about ten years.

Q: In May 2025, I spoke with Jack, and he shared how you invested as an angel investor in their early days. My biggest question is: before Airwallex was even established, just an idea, what moved you to invest that money?

Liu Yueting: I usually deal with pre-IPO and post-IPO companies. For them, 1 million USD isn’t a huge amount. But for a startup, it’s a significant investment.

Besides me, other partners also used some of their savings, but not as much as me. My thinking was to invest in something I could also personally commit to; if I just put in money without involvement, I wouldn’t have much control and wouldn’t know how the project would develop. Investing with my partners gave me some control. I tend to be quite controlling.

I think I was a bit impulsive, young, and willing to put both my money and myself into this venture. The worst case would be it doesn’t work out—then I’d just go back to what I was doing before.

Co-founder of Airwallex, from left: Xijing Dai, Jack Zhang, Lucy Liu, Max Li.

Q: There’s a rumor that ten years ago, this 1 million USD turned into 1.2 billion USD in returns. Is that accurate?

Liu Yueting: That’s probably not accurate. We’ve raised 12 rounds of funding, so there’s definitely some dilution, and the company’s valuation is always changing.

Q: There are reports claiming that because of this 1 million USD investment, you became New Zealand’s first female billionaire. Is that true?

Liu Yueting: Thank you for your interest. That was a ranking published by New Zealand media, and the figures are estimates. I think in the internet age, headlines tend to exaggerate. If you look closely at that list, I wasn’t at the very top—probably around 30th or 40th. So I think the billionaire list has some exaggeration, and I personally don’t like that label.

Q: Can you break down the investment logic behind that decision? What were the key considerations?

Liu Yueting: My basic logic involves three levels: people, the track, and the moat. I see this startup as a marathon; first, the runner’s endurance is crucial.

Second, the track must be large enough and challenging enough, so there are always new things to do, not just solving a small problem and then it’s over.

Finally, our licensing moat in payments is deep and broad enough. When we first talked about financial infrastructure, many didn’t understand—thought it was like building roads. But with AI development, people better understand the underlying value. Building infrastructure is more barrier-rich and valuable than just creating small tools. We spent ten years building relationships with regulators, earning their trust. Today, we hold 80 licenses and cooperate with over 50 global financial institutions. By year-end, we plan to apply for 13 more core licenses, including expanding foreign exchange trading into new countries.

Market size also confirmed my initial vision. Going global is now a necessity for international companies. We are no longer just a cross-border payment company but have integrated the entire financial lifecycle of enterprises—covering multi-currency, multi-entity receivables, fund management, and payments—creating a new global financial service model aligned with the fast pace of modern economies.

Q: As an investor, what is your problem-solving logic? Which company milestones in Airwallex’s development have validated your thinking?

Liu Yueting: I’ve never thought of myself as just an investor—I see myself as a co-founder. Investing capital is part of that. Honestly, after investing that money, I stopped thinking about returns. I fully embraced the role of a co-founder, growing with the company. At different stages, my role has changed—from doing everything early on to focusing on long-term strategy later. Sometimes, when a team leader position is vacant, I step in to manage a team and help it grow.

Frankly, 99.9% of the time, I see myself as a co-founder. Only during board meetings or fundraising do I feel like an investor.

Q: Over the ten years of founding Airwallex, what was the toughest trade-off you made?

Liu Yueting: Like Jack said, we almost got acquired by Stripe in 2018 (which we ultimately rejected). In the first three or four years, the company grew very fast. When we started generating revenue and entered a phase of structured growth, our forecasts became more accurate.

It’s not so much about trade-offs but choices. We tend to be quite ambitious, thinking we can do everything. At key moments, our choices and directions were correct. If you see it as a trade-off, we’ve never sacrificed long-term plans for short-term gains. Sometimes, we sacrificed some immediate benefits to focus on long-term growth. Looking back, in the first nine years, we achieved 500 million USD ARR, and from 500 million to 1 billion USD ARR, it only took a year. If the company hadn’t persisted into the tenth year, we wouldn’t have reached that billion. It’s a long process—staying committed to long-term beneficial actions even without immediate results.

Q: What did you do right that led to a breakthrough in revenue in the tenth year?

Liu Yueting: Everything we did in the past led to these results. Over ten years, we chose to build the network infrastructure rather than just applications. Founded in December 2015, we started revenue in January 2018. For more than two years, we had no income—quite stressful for a VC-backed company. We had partners, clients, and investors expecting results. But we chose to build financial infrastructure, which meant not overly relying on banks or any channel partners, but using our own local licenses and clearing networks.

Next, we connected products—initially foreign exchange and payments. In 2019, we launched global business accounts and end-to-end financial infrastructure, including card issuance and payment acquiring. We unified over 90 currencies across more than 200 countries and regions through a single FX engine and smart routing, greatly reducing time and costs.

Then, we became a financial operating system, integrating billing, expense control, finance, ERP, and more into our platform. Clients increasingly use multiple products from us, not just as a payment tool.

Currently, we focus on AI. When AI makes decisions, funds can be transferred in real-time globally, with compliance. From liquidity management to cross-border payments, these intelligent agents can handle reconciliation, transaction routing, optimization, and execution—real financial processes.

Q: You set a “North Star” goal: serve 1 million customers and reach 10 billion USD in ARR. But now, with only 1 billion USD ARR, how long do you think it will take, and what path will you follow to reach 10 billion USD?

Liu Yueting: It took nine years to go from annual revenue of 0 to 500 million USD, and just one year from 500 million to 1 billion USD. That gives us a clearer picture of the path to 10 billion USD—not relying on a single blockbuster product but on the compounding effect of systemic capabilities.

First, continuous global expansion. In 2025, we expanded into 12 new markets, improving local services and obtaining licenses in France, the Netherlands, Israel, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and the UAE, launching new products.

In 2026, we plan to enter over ten more markets; from 2026 to 2029, we will invest 1 billion USD to expand into the US. Over the next five years, we will spend over 500 million USD on the UK market.

Previously, our marketing spend was minimal because we believed in B2B sales and product leadership. But as we serve more small B clients and increase C-end exposure, global brand trust becomes crucial. Starting in 2025, we’ve increased offline marketing, including sponsorships with sports teams like McLaren and Arsenal—not just sponsorships but partnerships to improve operational efficiency outside the stadium. In March, we announced collaborations with the San Francisco Giants and the New Zealand Blue Sox.

Another key is providing a full ecosystem of services. Many clients initially chose us to solve specific problems—receivables, expense management, global expansion. But migrating their entire financial system to Airwallex significantly reduces costs. Over half of our clients now use multiple products, confirming our product-market fit is improving.

02 Business Expansion: How to Grow Fast While Maintaining Core Competitiveness?

Q: In recent years, more Chinese companies are going global. If you had to summarize the evolution of Chinese enterprises’ financial needs abroad in three keywords, what would they be?

Liu Yueting: I’d say: Compliance, Efficiency, Intelligence.

Initially, companies focused on whether they could safely receive and send money. Now, in complex geopolitical environments with multiple entities and currencies, they need precise settlement, tax, and regulatory compliance. The traditional model was mainly goods trade—exporting products while operations stayed domestic. That’s becoming harder. When exporting goods, companies are increasingly required to localize operations to meet local regulations. Helping companies manage local financial operations abroad reduces their burden.

The second stage is efficiency—reducing costs, speeding up payments, and supporting small, high-frequency transactions.

Recently, more clients ask about automation and intelligence: can they delegate reconciliation, expense control, and billing to systems or AI? Our strategy follows this trend: from global accounts and payment networks, to expense management and billing, to intelligent financial agents and commercial agents, enabling enterprises to handle global receivables, fund management, and smart decision-making on one platform.

Q: What are the biggest financial issues in failed overseas expansion cases you’ve observed?

Liu Yueting: Over-reliance on a particular track or trend—being too dependent on external factors affecting your business—can expose a company to significant risks.

But some companies succeed by reacting quickly to market changes. Like us, with core capabilities and limited external market impact, that’s a key to success.

Q: What is your biggest challenge now?

Liu Yueting: Our biggest challenge is the scale of our current operations. The market is huge—competition with banks and other players is inevitable, indicating the market’s size is large. But how to capture more of that pie? That’s the real test. We need to directly compete with traditional players who are investing heavily.

Also, on the choice front: every day involves different decisions. We must uphold our core clearing network and competitive advantages while rapidly integrating new technologies like AI into our processes. Everything starts from the bottom—by the time clients perceive improvements, the R&D cycle has already passed. How to accelerate this process? It’s a race against time. Missing it could leave us behind. Balancing speed with maintaining core competitiveness is a major challenge.

Another is whether our talent growth can keep pace with business growth. People are still the most important asset.

Q: How do you maintain your own growth to keep up with the company’s development?

Liu Yueting: People often say continuous learning is key. I think it’s more about business sensitivity—the ability to quickly analyze new developments and turn them into advantages for the company. My partner Jack is very strong in this. His learning curve is very steep.

I see my role as someone who, in complex situations, understands the company best and can step in where needed. I often say we founders are like firefighters—where there’s a fire, there we are.

Maintaining curiosity and passion is essential. It sounds cliché, but curiosity and enthusiasm are core to persisting in what you do.

Q: In working alongside three male co-founders, what makes you unique?

Liu Yueting: Even if the sky falls, I can still have a coffee. I believe founders need to provide emotional value. Having stable emotions helps stabilize the organization. As the company grows, your emotional stability becomes the core of team stability.

Q: What causes your emotions to fluctuate?

Liu Yueting: Even now, I sometimes have the impulse to do things myself. When I think I can do something better, I want to take over. Leadership isn’t about doing everything yourself; it’s about helping others do their best. But I’m still quite impulsive—this is something I reflect on.

03 AI Development: Who Does the Work, Where Does the Money Come From?

Q: In early 2026, AI companies faced a “model war”—who can iterate faster, who is more efficient, wins more value. Does this logic apply in fintech? Since competitors like Stripe are also investing in AI, will that stimulate Airwallex’s AI investments?

Liu Yueting: Fintech won’t be a game where the strongest model wins. The real competition is whether you can predict customer behavior—what they want to do next. I believe the best sales approach isn’t just listing features but advising on how to do things, like a consultant.

Airwallex has been cloud-native from day one, with robust data and scenarios, making AI application and scenario development easier for us.

Regarding competition, I think the market is large enough, mainly involving modern tech companies competing with traditional finance. Traditional finance still accounts for over 90% of global business. Disrupting this is a much bigger scale than competing with other tech firms, and the scale continues to grow.

Q: I don’t quite understand—what aspects of the company will AI change? I see Airwallex launched three major AI strategies in 2025: Agentic Finance, Agentic Commerce, and AI Protocols for Developers. What’s the core logic connecting these three?

Liu Yueting: These three strategies address who does the work, where the money comes from, and how the system is built.

Agentic Finance is about letting AI take over internal financial management. Traditional finance systems handle bookkeeping, reporting, and reconciliation—people log in, view reports, make decisions. We want to turn this into a system where AI assists CFOs—monitoring cash flow, forecasting, expense verification, initiating payments, and making decisions when necessary.

Agentic Commerce extends this intelligence to revenue and business scenarios. Companies not only manage money but also earn it. AI helps enterprises and consumers complete the entire chain: find products, compare prices, place orders, and pay. This not only improves internal financial efficiency but also creates incremental revenue at the front end.

Then, by establishing an AI Protocol, we make these capabilities open. To enable hundreds of AI agents to operate effectively, we need an open protocol and developer ecosystem. The AI Protocol allows different models, agents, and applications to access Airwallex’s payment, FX, card issuance, billing, and data services in a unified way, enabling cross-platform interoperability.

Together, these layers form our “AI-native financial operating system,” which is the direction we will continue to invest in over the next decade.

04 Wealth Creation: Industry Dividend or Compound of Capabilities

Q: You seem to dislike being labeled as a female leader, but in 2026, Airwallex launched the “Women Entrepreneurs Alliance.” What was the initial purpose of founding this alliance?

Liu Yueting: I’ve met many women founders abroad who hold leadership roles, so I’m quite resistant to being asked about gender. Once I said, if it’s not Jack asking me, then don’t ask me about gender.

The purpose of the Women Entrepreneurs Alliance is to share experiences and become each other’s lighthouse.

Within Airwallex, we see that when women executives face compliance issues, talent shortages, or cultural conflicts abroad, they often have to figure things out alone. For example, our Chief Legal and Compliance Officer Jeanette has handled compliance in dozens of countries; Dinghua, our Operations head, built operational systems across three continents. If these experiences stay only in one person’s mind, it’s a shame. So we want to connect isolated islands into an archipelago.

International Women’s Day is symbolic, but the real meaning is: from that day, members can initiate 1:1 requests—if you have compliance questions, you can invite Jeanette for coffee; if you’re building an overseas team, you can chat with Dinghua for two hours. We also have partners from AI, legal, branding, and marketing joining this Women’s Circle.

This isn’t a “ceremonial” alliance but a “practical” one. As more people share their experiences, the alliance becomes stronger. Women on the path to going abroad won’t have to face the “longest night” alone.

Q: Fintech is a male-dominated field. As a female founder, have you faced obstacles?

Liu Yueting: I feel quite lucky to have three co-founders who are very supportive and tolerant. Age was a bigger challenge early on. Being female and young made it harder.

In the early days, I faced situations like an investor introducing me to a client in a traditional industry. After the meeting, he said, “You’re good, but I didn’t quite understand. Maybe next time your boss can come.” That was awkward.

Now, at 35, I’m less likely to encounter such issues. Ultimately, the market, clients, and investors only care about two things: ability and results. Biases exist, but you need to persist and prove yourself over time.

Q: You’re a post-90s entrepreneur who accumulated great wealth by 35. Do you think your wealth is due to industry dividends or capability compound?

Liu Yueting: The era and industry are important. We’ve been fortunate to catch the wave of globalization and digital economy growth. Industry dividends definitely played a role. But I also believe you shouldn’t rely solely on industry luck. Being in the right place at the right time involves both luck and ability. The key is that the business itself is right—structural opportunities exist. I remember a founder saying everyone works hard; effort is necessary but not sufficient for success. Success involves a combination of effort, opportunity, and timing.

It’s not an easy path. It’s a complex mix of factors. Airwallex’s achievements over ten years confirm that this is a real structural issue. We combined effort and luck, and now I have some personal wealth. It’s a comprehensive result—each era offers opportunities.

Q: You achieved financial freedom early, entering a state where you lack nothing. What keeps you passionate and engaged now?

Liu Yueting: Jack asked me this too. He asked what motivates me. I truly love what I do—both the entrepreneurial journey and our business. As the company grows and becomes more complex, I’m forced to deepen my understanding of the field, which is a continuous growth process. That itself is a motivation. As the company develops, I grow too.

Every day, there’s always something new to do. Curiosity is important because it drives you to act. In the past, I focused on doing as many things as possible in the shortest time. Now, I focus on making more difficult, long-term, correct decisions—that’s my current motivation.