Brex launched in 2017 when Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, two Brazilian-born Stanford dropouts, set out to fix corporate credit cards for startups. Traditional banks wouldn’t issue cards to early-stage companies with no revenue or credit history, so Brex underwrote them differently — looking at cash balances, investor backing, and spending patterns instead of personal credit scores.
The company grew fast. By 2022, Brex had raised over $1.2 billion in equity funding and was valued at $12.3 billion. Its initial customer base was heavily startup-focused, but Brex gradually shifted toward mid-market and enterprise clients, a move that ruffled some feathers in the startup community.
Brex’s product suite includes corporate cards, expense management, bill pay, travel booking, and business accounts — all tied together in a single dashboard. The platform integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Xero, and it provides real-time spend tracking with automatic receipt matching.
In 2022, Brex made a controversial decision to drop small business customers and focus exclusively on companies with venture backing or higher revenue. This pivot sharpened its positioning against competitors like Ramp and Divvy (now part of Bill.com). Brex is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Vancouver, Salt Lake City, and Sao Paulo.
