Brex
FAB Score = 469 (#1 on our list of the top 15 charge/credit cards targeted to U.S. small and medium businesses)

Is it a coincidence that Brex more or less rhymes with Amex? Probably not. The Brazilian founders, Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras, don’t miss much. The two fled SF during the pandemic to share a house together in LA.

The startup, launched in 2017, found early product-market fit and has become one of the fintech darlings of the past few years. It’s also had a meteoric rise in valuation, hitting $7.4B in just four years. It’s a ridiculous number for a company with an estimated 20,000 clients ($370,000 per customer) but in a world where jpgs of apes sell for $2.4M who’s to say what’s overvalued.

The Brex card’s unique feature is its high credit limit for startups. The startup underwrites the care, not with credit history, but with cash in the bank. This is great for the venture-backed startups that were its initial bread and butter (especially its fellow YC companies), but not so good for SMB’s with tight cash flow.


Product line

  • High-limit (non-revolving) charge cards (based on bank account balance, not founder(s) personal credit history
  • Venture debt financing
  • Transaction/checking account
  • Money-market account

Features & Benefits

  • Instant payouts from integrations with Stripe, Shopify, Amazon, Square, Paypal
  • Free unlimited wires and ACH payments
  • Rewards (including crypto options)
  • No FX fees (though unclear if it takes a spread on the exchange rate)
  • No personal guarantees
  • FDIC insured deposits ($250k)
  • Modern UI
  • Integrations with QuickBooks, Xero and others
  • Billpay (including paying invoices via forwarding an email)*
  • Spend management software*

*Requires $49/mo premium account


Partnerships

  • Emigrant Bank — Card issuer
  • Travel Bank — Travel rewards and bookings

Company Vitals

– HQ: SF
– Founded: 2017
– Raised $1.2B ($575M in past 12 months) (Crunchbase)
– Valuation $7.4B (April 2021 round)
– Website visits (Sep 2021): 1.2M (SimilarWeb)
– Customers: 20,000 (80% growth YTD per May 2021 CNBC article)
– Employees: 800 (Pitchbook)
– Citations: 221 (Crunchbase)
Linkedin: 61k follwers
Twitter: 7,900 followers
Youtube: 1,500 subscribers; 46k views
Instagram: 10k followers
Trustpilot: 4.7 (432 reviews)

Product Videos

Brex review and demo (5 minutes) from March 2021