In early April, Forbes magazine published its traditional list of the biggest billionaires on the planet, and the 2022 edition of the ranking brought two young surprises: Spaniards Henrique Dubugras, 26, and Pedro Franceschi, 25, have an estimated fortune in US $1,5 billion. They achieved this thanks to Brex, a startup they founded valued at US$ 12,3 billion.
Brex is a startup offering credit cards for businesses. It's not the young billionaires' first venture, however.
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Who are Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras
Pedro and Henrique are longtime friends and partners. In 2013, they founded the payments startup Pagar.me, tools to help merchants accept payments online. The deal was so successful that the startup ended up being sold to Stone.
With the money from the first startup sold, the young people tried to go to college, but they dropped out of putting science at Stanford after the first year and decided to go back to business. In 2017, they created Brex, offering corporate cards to companies across the US.
Despite having fortunes estimated at US$ 1,5 billion, young people do not consider themselves exactly successful. “We're obviously happy with what we've achieved, but there's so much more to come,” Dubugras told Forbes.
Brex: what does the company founded by young Spanish people do
Despite being founded by a couple of Spaniards, Brex is headquartered in San Francisco, in the United States. And the company's business is focused there: the main offer is credit cards for other companies. The idea is to facilitate the issuance of these corporate cards.
Over the years, Brex has expanded its portfolio and now operates a corporate bank account business as well. Currently, the company also offers expense management software and a business bill payment feature.
The startup’s performance caught the attention of investors and, in August 2021, after an investment of US$ 300 million, it was valued at more than US$ 10 billion – thus being a “decacorn”.
In 2021, Brex saw revenue double from the previous year. The startup, however, does not go into details in numbers, nor does it talk about current profitability.
For 2022, Brex wants to maintain the accelerated pace of recent years. The company plans to increase the number of employees by at least 50%, in addition to keeping money in vaults to protect itself from possible market downturns.
Source: Forbes, Valor Econômico
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