Brex closes $424m Tiger Global-led round at $7.4bn valuation
Brex, the San Francisco-based corporate credit card provider tailored to start-ups, has landed $425 million in a Series D round led by Tiger Global Management.
The four-year-old start-up announced the round on Monday, which also garnered investment from TCV and Ribbit Capital.
“We have all types of businesses now signing up for Brex,” says co-CEO
It now puts Brex at a $7.4 billion valuation. Back in February, The Information reported on the then yet-to-close round, estimating a similar valuation of $8 billion.
Opening up its customer base
On Monday, Brex also unveiled a new product it’s dubbing an “all-in-one-finance solution”. It brings credit cards, business cash accounts, spend management and bill pay software into a single dashboard.
Part of its ‘Brex Premium’ offering, these tools cost small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers $49 a month.
Brex says SMBs now account for 45% of its customers. It also claims that in the first three months of this year, it has seen total customers climb by 80%.
“Until very recently, we only served technology and e-commerce companies, now we’re serving any business,” says Henrique Dubugras, Brex’s co-CEO.
“We have all types of businesses now signing up for Brex. Not only small businesses but mid-size businesses as well.”
Brex’s rise to a $7.4bn valuation
After completing the Y Combinator accelerator program in 2017, Brex launched its corporate card back in June 2018 with $57 million in funding. Investors included PayPal’s founders and Y Combinator.
The start-up went on to raise a $125 million Series C round in October 2018, at a valuation of $1.1 billion, and made its first acquisition.
By June 2019, it had raised $100 million at a $2.6 billion valuation, having raised an additional $100 million debt round just a couple of months prior with Barclays.
That same year, it made its first acquisition – blockchain-based digital payments solution, Elph Network.
Then in March 2020, it bought three more start-ups in San Francisco. These included fellow blockchain-focused firm Neji, edtech Compose Labs, and Landria, a firm producing internal knowledge databases.
Two months later, Brex landed $150 million, marking its penultimate funding round. Just a week after this raise, the fintech slashed 62 staff members.
Replacing banks
In February 2021, Brex announced it was embarking on the expensive road of a banking licence application.
The start-up is seeking the same banking licence US digital payments firm Square landed last year.
Brex currently partners with the likes of UMB Financial, Bank of the West, and Radius Bancorp. Through these firms, Brex has offered its corporate credit cards and held deposits.
Upon the eve of Brex’s latest product announcement, customer TuneGO pointed to the fintech’s potential in the banking space.
“The comprehensive suite of cash, credit card and bill pay is shaping Brex to be a solid replacement of traditional banking for the small business,” says Ofek Hayon, TuneGO’s chief operating officer.
To date, Brex has grown to more than 600 employees and raised over $940 million in venture capital.
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