How OurCrowd uses Airwallex to streamline investor payments

OurCrowd is the online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies at an early stage. Acclaimed by PitchBook as the most active venture investor in Israel, OurCrowd vets and selects companies across all sectors and stages, invests its own capital, and provides its global platform of over 220,000 registered members from 195 countries.  

OurCrowd has grown rapidly into the world’s leading online venture investing platform and as of 2023 has over $2.1B in commitments, and deployed capital into more than 400 portfolio companies and 42 funds across five continents.

OurCrowd uses the Airwallex platform to streamline the investor payment process, allowing for seamless currency conversions and transfer of funds between accounts.    

Challenge 

Traditionally, investors have been limited to investing in startups via USD-denominated wires on the OurCrowd platform. Even if OurCrowd wanted to offer their investors the ability to pay via another currency, they still had to consider the exchange rate and currency fluctuations that occur when accepting investments from around the world.

OurCrowd needed a solution to allow customers to pay in real time via their preferred local payment methods. Looking to offer their investors a more localised experience, OurCrowd kicked off a project with Airwallex to offer a truly global payment solution.

Solution

The Airwallex integration with OurCrowd allows investors to not only make investments via their local currency but also make payments via local banking rails.

By integrating a combination of Global Business Accounts, Quotes for FX, and Payouts, OurCrowd can now collect funds in an investor’s preferred currency, lock in the exchange rate for 24 hours, and transfer to a startup in USD – all via the Airwallex platform.

Micky Sapir

VP of Product, OurCrowd

“Airwallex has allowed us to modernise our payments infrastructure and cater to new investors all over the world. When making an investment the payment experience needs to be reliable, fast, and affordable. The Airwallex platform has allowed us to build out that experience for our investors.”

With the Airwallex API, OurCrowd can set up dedicated accounts for each individual investor’s preferred currency. Once the investor selects a startup or other deal they wish to invest in, they can choose their preferred currency and send the funds directly to a dedicated wallet for that investment opportunity. 

Quotes empowers any company from Online Travel Agencies to Wealthtech Platforms to create conversions from one currency to another at a fixed rate for a specified validity period. This validity period can be anywhere from 1 minute to 24 hours and quotes can either be single-use or multi-use.

Micky Sapir

VP of Product, OurCrowd

“We have always wanted to offer the ability for our investors to pay in their local currency. However, the issue we face is that we would have to take on quite a bit of risk with regards to foreign exchange. By using LockFX and locking in a currency pair for up to 24 hours, Airwallex allows us to be transparent with our investors while also protecting OurCrowd from any risk associated with currency fluctuations.”