I want to be a unicorn

Earlier this week, Airwallex became the latest payments company to achieve unicorn status.

It followed a winning formula that has enabled it to achieve triple digit growth: it operates in a hot sector (B2B cross-border payments), focuses on China and ecommerce and is very tech forward.

China is hot; last month, Chinese financial services firm Ant Financial closed its acquisition of WorldFirst for $700m.

The next unicorns in cross-border payments

We think five companies have a chance at reaching unicorn status.

Two consumer orientated companies, WorldRemit and Remitly, are currently large enough to be contenders.

Three business-focused groups also have a shot:

• Flywire’s receivables product is winning big payment clients from incumbents such as Western Union Business Solutions.
• Payoneer is riding the ecommerce wave and focusing on China like Airwallex and WorldFirst.
• Ebury has around 20,000 customers and is one of the fastest growing SME-focused payment companies.

But only one metric is going to make the difference: growth. Not linear growth, but growth in the 50-100% range, year on year. That’s the growth TransferWise, Revolut and Airwallex have achieved, which has made them unicorns.