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Brex
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi co-founded Brex in 2017 as a credit-first fintech now serving 35,000+ companies globally.
Brex
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi founded Brex in San Francisco in 2017, fresh from building Pagar.me, the Brazilian payments processor they started in their teens. Their first move in the US was an accelerator slot at Y Combinator, where they pivoted from a previously tested virtual-reality concept into a product aimed at a market they knew intimately: credit and financial infrastructure for startups. Brex launched its corporate card tailored to venture-backed companies, using proprietary underwriting models that weighted real-time cash balances and fundraising history more heavily than personal guarantees. Brex's investment posture centers on credit extension and structured lending rather than pure-play VC deployment. The firm allocates balance-sheet capital, warehouse lines, and capital markets issuance against receivables, spanning domestic and cross-border card receivables, term loans, and venture debt. Named funding partners include Barclays, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley across asset-backed facilities. The lending book operates across multiple stages — from pre-revenue startups (once a core bank partner exits the deal) to later-stage enterprises moving global payroll and travel. Geographies served include the United States, Brazil, and Israel, with operational support spanning 120+ countries. The firm serves 35,000+ companies and has raised over $1.5 billion in equity from Greenoaks, IVP, Tiger Global, Y Combinator Continuity, Kleiner Perkins, DST Global, Ribbit Capital, and individuals Max Levchin and Peter Thiel. Brex runs offices in San Francisco, New York, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, São Paulo, and Tel Aviv. In 2023, Fast Company named Brex #2 on its top 50 disruptors list, reflecting the expansion from startup cards to enterprise expense management software. Executive leadership has evolved into a co-CEO structure fully shared by Dubugras and Franceschi. Structurally, Brex occupies an unusual capital allocator role: it is a bank-adjacent fintech operating an issuer-processor model with direct lending authority, bypassing most third-party bank sponsors. The firm compounds this with an AI-first operating model — building autonomous engineering agents for internal infrastructure — and a public blog that functions as an editorial voice on engineering culture and autonomous agent design. This technical brand attracts engineering talent in a way that pure financial allocators cannot replicate, creating a durable talent moat while maintaining the firm's posture as a credit investor first.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2017
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Additional offices
New York, NY · Salt Lake City, UT · Vancouver, BC, Canada · Sao Paulo, Brazil · Tel Aviv, Israel
Principals
Henrique Dubugras
Co-CEO & Co-Founder
Pedro Franceschi
Co-CEO & Co-Founder
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
How does Brex fund the credit it extends to its customers?
Brex uses a combination of its own balance-sheet capital, secured warehouse facilities, and capital markets securitizations. The firm closed a $300 million warehouse facility in 2022 and has raised over $1.5 billion in equity from investors including Greenoaks, Tiger Global, and DST Global. These funding lines are structured against the receivables generated by its corporate card, venture debt, and term lending products.
Is Brex a bank, and how does that affect its credit underwriting?
Brex is not a chartered bank. It operates as a fintech issuer-processor, meaning it originates credit and payment rails through partner banks and its own lending licenses where applicable. Its underwriting models for venture-backed companies emphasize metrics like real-time cash balances and recent fundraising history, which differs from traditional bank models that rely heavily on personal guarantees and FICO scores.
Who runs day-to-day operations at Brex?
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi serve as co-CEOs, sharing executive leadership. Both are co-founders who previously built Pagar.me, a Stripe-like payments platform in Brazil, which they sold before launching Brex. The co-CEO structure surfaced publicly as leadership evolved beyond the firm's earlier startup phase.
Does Brex take equity positions in the startups it serves?
Brex's primary investment exposure is through credit and structured lending rather than equity venture capital. While some financial arrangements could include warrant structures or equity-linked features, public disclosures emphasize that Brex operates as a lender, not as a direct equity investor in its corporate card and expense-management client base.
What regions does Brex actively operate in?
Brex operates in the United States, Brazil, and Israel with direct legal entities and local banking relationships, and supports corporate spend in over 120 countries through its card issuance and global payments infrastructure. Brazilian operations trace back to the founders' earlier experience with Pagar.me and an acquisition of a Brazilian-licensed fintech to expand that market.
How does Brex's credit portfolio perform relative to traditional commercial lenders?
Brex does not publicly disclose portfolio-level credit metrics such as net charge-off rates, delinquency ratios, or coverage reserves. The firm's institutional capital providers (Barclays, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley) perform their own due diligence, and the reported warehouse facility pricing reflected at-market structured-credit terms for the fintech lender segment at the time of closing.
What role does AI play in Brex's own operations beyond the customer-facing expense features?
Brex publishes technical posts about building autonomous AI agents for internal engineering workflows, including on-call incident response and infrastructure management. This operational AI program is separate from the AI-powered expense assistant marketed to CFOs and finance teams, suggesting the firm treats AI infrastructure as a core competency that extends into its own technology stack.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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