Brex

Brex is a financial technology company that describes itself as the AI-powered spend platform. Its stated purpose is to transform finance teams from reactive no-sayers into proactive growth drivers, so that companies can spend with confidence while employees are empowered to make smarter financial decisions from anywhere. The company positions its offering as a first-of-its-kind solution that integrates the financial services and software modern businesses need to launch confidently, scale smarter, and reach their full potential.

The product set spans corporate cards, business accounts and global payments, combined with intuitive software for travel and expense management. Together these tools are designed to make it easy to plan and track all company spend in one place, in real time, and to help companies proactively control spend, reduce costs and increase efficiency on a global scale. Brex frames its core challenge as breaking the tradeoff between speed and control in business finance.

Brex serves a broad range of customers. According to the company, more than 35,000 companies use Brex to manage their finances, including startups, scaled companies and ecommerce brands. It works with founders, CFOs and their teams, and its customer base has been described as ranging from startups to global enterprises, with publicly cited examples including DoorDash, Flexport and Compass. Brex also notes that one in three founders in the U.S. uses Brex.

The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Brex is backed by investors including Greenoaks, IVP, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, Kleiner Perkins, DST Global, Lone Pine Capital and fintech specialist Ribbit Capital, as well as PayPal co-founders Max Levchin and Peter Thiel. Henrique Dubugras is identified as Co-CEO. Brex has been recognized on Fast Company’s 2023 list of the top 50 disruptors of innovative companies advancing breakthrough technology, where it was named #2.

Brex’s mission is to empower employees anywhere to make better financial decisions. The company argues that innovative businesses today operate globally, automate workflows and digitize information, yet most financial providers have not kept pace, leaving traditional banks unable to build what the businesses of the future need.

On culture, Brex describes careers at the company as a launchpad rather than a landing pad, hiring people who dream big and who have grit, autonomy and ambition. Its stated values are Dream Big, Ownership, Impatient Optimism, One Brex, Customer Obsession and Growth Mindset. Company principles include the ideas that founders are built by doing hard things, that working at Brex should feel hard but not difficult, that the best leaders operate at all levels, and that the company is run close to the metal, with visibility into company-wide decisions and financials.

Brex reports that more than 100 alumni have gone on to launch their own companies, which it says is four times the industry average, and it invests in internal talent, believing future founders are already at the company. Employees are supported with benefits covering medical, dental and vision coverage, mental health resources, generous vacation and parental leave, fertility and nursing benefits, in-person collaboration days and offsites, commuter benefits, and fully remote weeks.