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Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and chief executive office of Brex. Photo by Bloomberg

As Recession Looms, Brex Stockpiles Cash, Cuts Credit

Photo: Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and chief executive office of Brex. Photo by Bloomberg

Before the coronavirus outbreak, Brex had become the poster child of Silicon Valley largesse. By offering fellow startups high-limit charge cards, its 24-year-old founders had attracted illustrious investors like Kleiner Perkins, rocketing Brex to a $2.6 billion valuation. Flush with cash, it blanketed downtown San Francisco with advertisements, bought four companies, quadrupled its staff, started a magazine—and even opened a restaurant. All in just three years.

Today co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi are bracing for a harsher reality. Reeling from the coronavirus shutdowns, Brex customers including Airbnb, Outdoor Voices and ClassPass are slashing costs and cutting thousands of jobs. A replay of the 2001 dot-com crash, which wiped out a generation of promising upstarts, could be Brex’s death knell. It has already cut credit limits to reduce its exposure, losing out on revenue it might have generated from these customers and angering some borrowers because it didn’t warn them in advance.

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Meet The Information’s New Financial Power Brokers
Photos via Goldman Sachs, Elliott Management, Bloomberg, the Berkeley Forum, JPMorgan Chase, Sequoia, UC Berkeley and YouTube.
Jamie Dimon won’t run JPMorgan Chase forever, and Marc Andreessen will one day give way to the next generation of investors. The Information has identified the bankers, executives and investors who could replace them by stepping into the upper echelons of the finance industry in the years to come. They are The Information’s New Financial Power Brokers: the people who will run...
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