
Brex Has Amassed A Valuation Of $1.1B In Under Two Years - thoughtstheseus
https://www.forbes.com/sites/donnafuscaldo/2018/10/05/brex-has-amassed-a-valuation-of-1-1-billion-in-under-two-years/#64cebde065a1
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apo
As a startup founder, why should I care about Brex in particular? I know
startups are different in a lot of ways, but it's not clear how they're
different when it comes to credit cards. The Brex website isn't much help.

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sahaskatta
I can chime in. Lot of SF Bay Area startups just go with someone like Silicon
Valley Bank. Their sign up process is antiquated and painful. Their
integrations with services such as QuickBooks or Xero is often unreliable. We
had to put down a large sum in a collateral to simply be able to open a card.
The online banking interfaces are super dysfunctional and slow. Corporate card
rewards programs often suck. Customer support is super slow.

Signing up for Brex was super fast. Took like just a few mins. They integrate
with accounting software pretty well. (Warning, still some bugs they have to
work out.) We didn't need to put a collateral deposit to open a Brex card as
it's a charge card, not a credit card. Their web dashboard is still very "v1"
but it's already better than most banks I've used and it's getting better
unlike most banks. Brex offers 4x points on ridesharing, 3x on restaurants, 2x
on travel, 2x Recurring Software (SaaS), etc. Support? They respond to me on
live chat even at 9 PM on a Friday in like 30 seconds. It's awesome.

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chrisseaton
> Brex offers 4x points on ridesharing, 3x on restaurants, 2x on travel, 2x
> Recurring Software (SaaS), etc.

Why do card providers offer more points on some things than others? Aren’t
their fees the same everywhere?

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dguaraglia
Most likely the product of some number crunching: what does seem to provide a
competitive advantage at a relatively low cost? Giving tons on points on
travel is a bad idea, as business accounts tend to spend a lot on travel. But
giving 4x points on ridesharing isn't as bad idea (nobody spends thousands of
dollars per month on ridesharing on a single card).

I'm pretty sure the fees are not necessarily a factor in this calculation.

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lykron
American Express gives out credit cards like candy. We make 600/month and Amex
have us 40k in credit. It’s aslo cheaper than their offering.

It looks like an interesting product, but I’m surprised that Chase or Amex
hasn’t attacked the market segment.

~~~
5874-4b22-a4e0
I have 7k a month pretax, with excellent credit and only have 9k limit on
amex. 13k on my visa. When I request increases, I only get 500-1k increases.

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fossuser
You might need a fancier card with a yearly fee - the chase sapphire reserve
would probably give you $30k and the Amex platinum would give you something
similar.

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arikr
The comments in this article are odd. The process of getting a credit card for
a startup is pretty bad -- see the section on "credit cards" here
[https://rein.pk/startup-finance-for-founders-part-i-
accounti...](https://rein.pk/startup-finance-for-founders-part-i-accounting)

Brex seems like a meaningful improvement over that.

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amatecha
Brex seems like a slightly unfortunate name in the times of "Brexit", heh :\

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breck
I think it’s a great name. :)

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amatecha
haha! nice

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ryanbertrand
I really like our Brex experience so far.

Being able to see who in the company made a charge and set limits per user is
great. BofA did not have this functionality when I asked our banker ~6mo ago
(for debit cards). Getting a virtual card right when you sign up was a great
UX.

I’d love a mobile app though.

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sam0x17
Very cool platform -- it's nice to see these sorts of things custom tailored
for startups.

Now, for the elephant in the room:

If you ever get acquired, definitely call it a brexit internally. On that note
I assume you got stuck with the name Brex _before_ all that happened, no?

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dtf
It's tickling to see this dynamic new company with a name so close to an event
that inspires such fiery passions in my country.

Recently I've noticed that The Sun, Britain's foremost tabloid and an ardent
supporter of aforementioned event, have started shortening the name to "Brex"
in a few of their headlines. [1]

And now I'm also thinking of another company that ended up renaming themselves
to avoid connotations with the name of the original event that inspired the
name of the subsequent event that may or may not have inspired the name of
this product. [2]

[1]
[https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1046513253843718144](https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1046513253843718144)

[2] [https://qz.com/510040/grexit-the-unfortunately-named-
softwar...](https://qz.com/510040/grexit-the-unfortunately-named-software-
startup-is-changing-its-name/)

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joejerryronnie
They should just cut out the middle man and have the VC's pay Brex directly.
Then Brex can establish monthly payments to other VC firms and various SF
restaurants/landlords. Much more efficient than the current setup.

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dang
There's a larger WSJ article here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18147846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18147846)

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muzz
Anyone know if their business actually getting traction?

I've seen the billboards, but haven't heard anyone use it

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bradleybuda
Same. I’m in the epicenter of the SF startup bubble and while I’ve seen tons
of ads and heard all the hype, I’ve never met a single user. Anecdata of
course, but I’m a little skeptical.

~~~
nadezhda18
there are at least two Brex users who left their comments above yours

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Qworg
We love Brex - they've been great to us and we love the integrations and easy
receipt capture.

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rdlecler1
Not sure I get the use case. We put down a small deposit for CC access.
Moreover companies treat capital providers as commodities so if BoA offers
better terms when a company matures then the startup ought to take it.

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onetimemanytime
Cliche, but Brex thinks that they can outdo banks? If there's money to be made
at Brex terms, banks with gazillion more resources surely will jump in.

~~~
rco8786
This is pretty much the classic line against any startup taking on an industry
with established incumbents, and, as always, fails to account for the
incumbents' complete lack of agility _and_ the startup's long term vision.

This isn't to say that Brex will be a huge success. But rather, that your
argument is one against any startup entering an established market.

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Cshelton
_Brex has disrupted the conventional credit model. By rebuilding the
technology from scratch, they’ve reimagined underwriting so it doesn’t require
personal guarantees. Brex assesses companies based on factors that matter –
like cash in the bank and activity in the business_

No. You haven't disrupted anything. You are doing what almost every single
bank does when they issue a business line of credit. Cash in bank and business
activity.

All you guys did was go after a market that has ZERO idea about how to talk to
a bank and then secured a large number of customers within that market. And as
another commentator said, once a startup grows, they will secure the best
terms they can find. Good luck.

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fipple
A lot of business lines of credit for small companies are personally backed.

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asah
Can confirm. This was a MAJOR issue for my last startup and affected a ton of
decisions.

Even the SBA (small business administration) requires personal guarantees,
i.e. you're loaning money to yourself but giving someone else the interest.

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ocdtrekkie
Please don't share AMP links, especially since they provide a really
misleading view of what you're submitting.

Brex (google.com) looks like the announcement of a Google product, but it's
actually a Forbes article.

I would've also preferred a longer title (like the article headline) that told
me what I was clicking on.

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sctb
Thanks, we've updated the link from
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/donnafusca...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/donnafuscaldo/2018/10/05/brex-
has-amassed-a-valuation-of-1-1-billion-in-under-two-years/amp/) and the title
from “Brex”.

