Airwallex announced the global launch of its refreshed ‘Airwallex for Startups’ program1, an initiative designed to help founders turn finance into a growth engine. The program positions financial operations as a driver of scalability, resilience, and innovation instead of just a back-office function. Yet for many founders, that vision “remains out of reach.” Internationally, the vast majority or 90% of startups fail, and nearly 2 in 5 (38%) “stall because they run out of cash.”
When firms are unable to properly manage their financial operations, even good business models and steady revenue are “no guarantee of survival.”
It’s this gap that the ‘Airwallex for Startups’ program will now aim to address. The program will start first in Singapore before expanding to various other markets in the months ahead.
It brings together Airwallex’s financial infrastructure with hands-on CFO mentorship and an AI innovation sandbox, “going beyond traditional startup programs by helping founders build resilient financial foundations and scalable growth models.”
Previously, the program supported startups across regions with access to Airwallex’s financial infrastructure, startup perks, and community-building events – including “a pitch competition in Singapore judged by a panel that included the Singapore Fintech Association – as well as learning and networking sessions with the likes of Square Peg, Jungle Ventures, and NextGen Ventures, Australia‘s student-focused venture capital fund. Startups in select regions also had the opportunity to win business acceleration grants worth $10,000 in their respective local currencies.”
Building on that foundation, this next phase takes the mission further by equipping founders with “the tools, guidance, and networks they need to grow beyond borders with confidence.”
The ‘Airwallex for Startups’ program is built on “core pillars” that are designed to maximise founder success:
- Stage-appropriate financial infrastructure: Startups gain access to Airwallex products and financial perks designed to make every dollar count. Benefits scale with funding stage – from pre-seed through Series A and beyond – ensuring support grows alongside each company’s trajectory.
- Strategic financial mentorship: Founders receive ongoing access to veteran finance leaders through the Startup CFO Expert Panel. These CFOs have guided some of the region’s most successful tech companies through hypergrowth and downturns alike. Participants join small-group sessions and operator-led masterclasses covering cash-flow and burn optimisation, valuation and cap-table strategy, fundraising preparation, and investor relations. The program officially kicks off with the Startup CFO Summit in Singapore, gathering over 100 founders, 20 CFOs, and a select group of investors for workshops on the financial fundamentals that make or break early-stage companies.
- The AI Sandbox: The AI Sandbox provides a differentiated innovation track for AI-native startups. Selected teams receive real challenge statements from Airwallex – such as customer-acquisition or workflow-automation problems – and collaborate directly with internal champions to design and test solutions in live conditions.
The most promising teams may go on to develop design-partner relationships with Airwallex, gaining ‘early customer validation and proof points to accelerate future fundraising.” The inaugural cohort focuses “on growth and productivity use cases.”
Airwallex has also teamed up with OpenAI, Google Cloud, HubSpot5, and other leading platforms to provide founders with a stack of perks “across AI, cloud infrastructure, and growth tools.” This approach creates a multiplier effect that extends beyond financial services, “giving startups the toolkit they need to build, ship, and scale faster.”
