The companies have signed a definitive agreement, and the transaction is expected to close in the middle of the year, subject to customary closing conditions, Capital One said in a press release.
Richard D. Fairbank, founder, chairman and CEO of Capital One, said in the release that the acquisition will accelerate the bank’s longstanding efforts to be “at the frontier of the technology revolution.”
Brex’s software platform is artificial intelligence-native and leverages AI agents to automate complex workflows, according to the release. The platform helps businesses issue corporate cards, automate expense management and make real-time payments.
“Brex invented the integrated combination of corporate credit cards, spend management software and banking together in a single platform,” Fairbank said. “They have taken the rarest of journeys for a FinTech, building a vertically integrated platform from the bottom of the tech stack to the top.”
When the transaction is completed, Brex Founder and CEO Pedro Franceschi will continue to lead Brex as part of Capital One, according to the release.
Franceschi said in a Thursday (Jan. 22) blog post that together, Capital One and Brex will build “the most important financial platform for businesses in the U.S.”
The Brex platform serves tens of thousands of businesses, including 1 in 3 U.S. startups, more than 300 public companies and some of the world’s largest enterprises, according to the post.
Franceschi said that Capital One is “one of the most tech-forward banks in the world” and that the bank has $900 billion in annual card gross merchandise value, $700 billion in assets, $150 billion in market cap, a $6 billion marketing budget and a $6 billion research and development budget.
“By combining Brex’s technology, product and go-to-market success with Capital One’s unprecedented scale, brand, distribution and balance sheet, we will supercharge our go-to-market and product development with levels of investment that will accelerate our mission by over a decade,” Franceschi said in the post.
In some of Brex’s most recent moves, the company partnered with Fifth Third Bank on a commercial card, began a collaboration in which Brex will power the embedded B2B payments solution Oracle B2B, and announced plans to add stablecoin payments to its global corporate card.
Meanwhile, it was reported in June that Capital One had entered a “new era” after completing its acquisition of Discover Financial Services, which increased Capital One in size, added a debit and credit card network, and could “supercharge” its banking and card businesses.
