Losing gobs of money on a quest for hyper-growth and world domination might get you funding from venture capitalists, but it won’t get you a credit card from a bank.
Now, one startup wants to change that, and it’s convinced Silicon Valley heavyweights Peter Thiel and Max Levchin to invest in its idea. Rather than focus on credit history, San Francisco-based Brex Inc. looks at funding raised in order to issue cards to companies and employees to cover startup expenses. On Tuesday, Brex launched a credit card targeted specifically at venture-backed companies.
“Traditional banks issue a credit card like issuing a loan,” said Henrique Dubugras, Brex co-founder and chief executive officer. “We ingest real-time data and make a decision on the credit limit every day.”
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, a few firms had already been using the credit card, which has so far been issued to roughly 1,000 people. The company also announced that it had raised $57 million in a series B funding round that included PayPal co-founders Thiel and Levchin, as well as Y Combinator Continuity, Ribbit Capital and others.
Dubugras and his co-founder, Pedro Franceschi, previously founded Brazilian payments processor Pagar.me while they were teenagers, before starting Brex in 2017.
