The titanium credit card... is one way to innovate plastic. Brex is going in a different direction — it's offering venture capital darlings credit cards. And for becoming the payment choice for tech startups, it's about to reach a $2B valuation with its latest fundraise. Everything Brex does is fast:
- Growth: It joined the rarefied club of unicorns under 2-years-old thanks to plenty of funding from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and other big-time investors.
- Marketing: If your hometown is full of tech startups, its taxis, bus stops, and billboards are probably wallpapered with Brex ads.
- School: The Brazilian co-founders are in their early 20s and exited college fast (by dropping out of Stanford).
Future > Past... That's the premise of Brex in 3 words or less. Most credit card companies want to see a robust and consistent credit history when a customer applies. But Brex looks at a startup's credit future instead. That tweak of an evaluation strategy lets Brex offer business cards for well-funded startups and their employees.
Fintech is about asking "why?"... The credit card industry's focus on credit histories to approve cards is a catch-22: Startups couldn't get credit cards without credit histories, but they couldn't get a credit history without a credit card. If a VC is willing to invest $10M in a startup, then Brex realizes the business can handle a 10K credit card line.