Brex

Brex is a San Francisco-based financial technology company that provides corporate cards, expense management, bill pay, banking, and treasury services to startups, mid-market businesses, and enterprise organizations. Founded in 2017 by Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras, the company set out to solve a persistent problem for high-growth companies: traditional corporate credit cards size limits against founder personal credit scores and require personal guarantees, leaving capital-intensive but pre-revenue or early-revenue businesses chronically underpowered on spend.

The Problem

Before Brex, a startup that had raised a Series A round might be offered a corporate card limit calibrated to a founder's personal FICO score, despite holding millions in a bank account. Founders were routinely asked to pledge personal assets to secure business credit, creating risk asymmetry. At the same time, expense management was fragmented: receipts collected by email, reimbursement run manually, month-end reconciliation done in spreadsheets, and accounting teams spending days re-coding transactions for ERP entry.

Core Mechanism

Brex replaces personal credit evaluation with a business-financial underwriting model. When a company applies, Brex assesses revenue, raised capital, and cash position rather than a founder's personal credit report. No personal guarantee is required. This lets Brex offer limits that are typically 10x to 20x higher than traditional small-business cards for the same company profile. Approvals can complete in minutes, with virtual cards issued immediately.

The card runs on the Mastercard network, is accepted worldwide, and is available in local currencies across more than 50 countries, with no foreign-transaction fees. Both physical and virtual cards are issued; virtual cards can be created per vendor or per team member with custom spending rules, expiration dates, and single-use constraints.

Spending controls are embedded at the point of transaction rather than enforced after the fact. Finance teams set limits by category, merchant type, or individual amount. The platform flags anomalous spend in real time, routes receipts for automated capture and IRS-compliant coding, and handles memo generation and general-ledger categorization without manual input. Brex reports that 71% of expenses on its platform are handled entirely by automations, saving customers an average of 756 hours per year.

Product Suite

Corporate Cards form the core offering. Rewards reach 7x on rideshare, 4x on Brex travel, 3x on restaurants, and 2x on software subscriptions, plus access to more than $350,000 in partner perks. There are no annual fees.

Expense Management extends the card with AI-driven approval workflows, real-time budget tracking by team or subsidiary, and automated receipt collection. Brex integrates with more than 1,000 ERP and accounting systems for two-way data sync, eliminating duplicate entry.

Bill Pay automates vendor invoice processing. AI reads invoices, enters line items, and routes payments, reducing accounts-payable processing time.

Banking and Treasury gives companies a high-yield account generating up to 4.36% APY with same-hour liquidity, alongside a savings vault offering up to $6 million in FDIC insurance through a network of partner banks. The company held approximately $13 billion in aggregate customer deposits at partner banks as of early 2026.

Travel Management allows employees to book trips in-platform, keeping all spend consolidated and policy-enforced without requiring a separate travel management system.

Stablecoin Payments and Solana

On September 30, 2025, Brex announced native stablecoin payments, positioning itself as the first global corporate card platform to enable businesses to accept, hold, and send stablecoins and to pay card balances directly with stablecoins. The initial supported asset is USDC. Transfers settle in seconds with zero conversion fees, and the rails operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, eliminating the banking-hours constraints that make cross-border wire transfers slow and expensive.

Solana is integral to the launch. The Solana Foundation committed early, with Head of Stablecoins Tamar Menteshashvili stating: "Stablecoins are transforming global money movement, and Solana provides the best-in-class infrastructure to power that future." Solana confirmed it would be integrated from the start of the platform. Alongside the Solana Foundation, crypto and fintech companies Figure and Alchemy were among the first to join the waitlist. Brex serves a significant share of the crypto and blockchain industry, with leading Solana-ecosystem firms running their day-to-day corporate finances on the platform.

For Solana ecosystem companies specifically, the stablecoin payments layer closes a significant workflow gap: teams that hold USDC on Solana can now send funds for business expenses and receive stablecoin payments from customers without converting to fiat and back through traditional banks.

Business Scale and Financials

By August 2025, Brex was generating approximately $700 million in annualized revenue, up roughly 50% year-over-year. Enterprise revenue grew 70% in the first quarter of 2025, and net revenue retention exceeded 130%, indicating strong expansion within existing accounts. The company reached operating cash-flow positive status in October 2025. In January 2025, Brex closed a $235 million revolving credit facility led by Citi. Brex serves approximately 25,000 companies, including DoorDash, Zoom, and Anthropic.

Acquisition by Capital One

In January 2026, Capital One Financial agreed to acquire Brex for $5.15 billion, comprising $2.75 billion in cash and approximately 10.6 million Capital One shares, in a transaction described as the largest bank-fintech deal in history at that time. The deal closed on April 7, 2026. Pedro Franceschi remains CEO of Brex within Capital One. For Brex customers, the acquisition brings additional institutional infrastructure while Brex continues to operate its platform independently.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Brex is not a Solana-native protocol, but it occupies a meaningful position in the ecosystem as the preferred corporate financial platform for Solana-adjacent organizations, from the Solana Foundation itself to blockchain infrastructure companies and crypto-native startups. The stablecoin payments integration with Solana as a primary settlement layer connects on-chain dollar flows directly to corporate card spend and bill pay, reducing the friction between blockchain treasury management and traditional business operations.