Toshi Kameoka is the Head of Strategy at Airwallex US and Canada. Airwallex is a fintech unicorn founded in Melbourne, Australia (not the HQ as I mention in the opening remarks...yikes ) helping global businesses move funds cross-border in the fastest, cheapest, most transparent, and most predictable way possible. In short, they are looking to become the "AWS of global banking". The startup has recently raised $360Mn Series D with early 2020 at nearly $2Bn valuation. Its largest investor and major is Tencent and includes other marquee investors like Sequoia Capital, DST Global, Salesforce Ventures, and Mastercard. 

In today's episode you will learn:

1. Toshi's background and his journey up until Airwallex, and his non-linear path that in hindsight prepared him for his current role.

2. What is Airwallex? the status-quo it was looking to disrupt, and its current state.

3. The rapid pace of change and expansion, the challenges posed by the US regulation, the advantage of a b2b vs. b2c business, and how COVID-19 has impacted the startup ecosystem. 

4. What kind of team one needs to build to beat the expectations and meet the KPIs when growing from zero to one?

Items mentioned in today's show:

Startup to lookout: Middesk, a modern infrastructure to establish trust between every business. 

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]

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