from Hacker News

Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

by personjerry on 1/22/26, 9:23 PM with 358 comments

Archive link: https://archive.md/vk8ov

Capitol One statement: https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

Brex statement: https://www.brex.com/journal/brex-and-capital-one-join-force...

  • by CatsOnHats on 1/23/26, 6:37 AM

    Brex literally came to us one day in 2022, and notified us that "We have 6 weeks to move everything off their service" they told us boldly they are refocusing on the enterprise market and we were only a "SMB". The guy who literally told us this framed it as a good thing for us like it was some sort of weird break up.

    At the time we had signed a large enterprise agreement not long before that, and we even were advertised as a enterprise customer testimonial. When we mentioned that he said it was final. They ghosted us apparently and from what i heard a bunch of companies were the same somehow no longer acceptable for their services. I had a friend who worked for a very large F500 company who also got a similar treatment.

    Ironically i had a friend a tiny crypto startup that somehow was allowed to stay despite not meeting their requirements.

  • by giorgioz on 1/23/26, 7:20 AM

    Brex rejected my application to open a bank account in 3 different occasion. mercury.com provided me the B2B account within the day and the product and UX is awesome.

  • by tschellenbach on 1/22/26, 10:16 PM

    Feels like they were first in the space but then somehow Ramp ran away from dev with a higher dev pace. Fascinating to see.

  • by nikolay on 1/23/26, 1:33 AM

    So, they got Greenlight, Discover, and now - Brex. They are turning into a financial powerhouse.

  • by blindriver on 1/22/26, 10:17 PM

    The investors all have liquidity preferences so the ones that invested at higher valuations didn't lose any money.

    But all employees after 2021 are underwater. I wonder if they got any relief from management or if they got screwed.

  • by yalogin on 1/23/26, 5:01 AM

    Wow why did it go for so much less than the last valuation? Is the overall market turning bad or is it just a Brex thing?

  • by nokun7 on 1/23/26, 5:37 AM

    That's less than half of Brex's crazy $12.3 billion peak back in 2022.

    But honestly, it’s still one of the biggest fintech deals ever and actually gives people real money in a market where most unicorns are just stuck. The founders are reportedly splitting about $1 billion each, early investors (2017-2018) are getting 12-80x returns, and YC’s tiny $120k seed turned into ~$100 million (800x, insane TBH). Even later folks (especially the 2021-2022 crowd) are breaking even (at least) or getting a little upside thanks to some 2024 RSU top-ups.

  • by bmau5 on 1/22/26, 9:55 PM

    Feels like a great outcome for Brex. Mercury and Ramp seem to have been chipping away at their leadership position in recent years, so I wonder how their growth trajectory changed over that period.

  • by paxys on 1/22/26, 10:14 PM

    Sold for $5.15B.

    Brex last raised $300M in Oct 2021 at a $12.3B valuation.

  • by rishabhparikh on 1/22/26, 9:29 PM

    Tough outcome for many involved given peak valuation @ 12B

  • by fairity on 1/22/26, 9:43 PM

    Why are people saying this seems like a bad deal?

    If they really only raised $1.7b, per Crunchbase, then this seems to me like a very good outcome for everyone involved except its late stage investors. And, even for the late stage investors, they're breaking even.

  • by ori_b on 1/22/26, 11:19 PM

    I guess it's not a bad Brexit.

  • by toomuchtodo on 1/22/26, 9:32 PM

  • by htrp on 1/22/26, 9:36 PM

    Fintech trading poorly. Also Brex didn't successfully make the AI pivot like their competitors at Ramp

  • by rvz on 1/22/26, 9:32 PM

    This looks like a bad deal for Brex as they were valued at 12 billion.

    Capital One got a nice discount.

  • by asdev on 1/22/26, 11:12 PM

    Ramp valued at $32B is a joke. Hopefully this sets a realistic benchmark for valuation. All Ramp did was spend more on ads and marketing. And CEO is now claiming their "AI Agents" are going to do something meaningful.

  • by LgWoodenBadger on 1/22/26, 11:35 PM

    Capitalone is going to need something to make up for switching all their debit cards from MasterCard to Discover

  • by swyx on 1/22/26, 11:54 PM

    Brex's CTO recently came on LS to talk about their AI strategy and tech: https://latent.space/p/brex

  • by pizzathyme on 1/23/26, 3:07 PM

    Congrats to the Brex team and the YC partners that supported them!

  • by 0x100001011 on 1/23/26, 2:33 AM

    Conditional anti-trust approval reflecting NXP unsolicited bid.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20190827190311/https://www.wsj.c...

  • by SaaSasaurus on 1/24/26, 12:19 AM

    Brex CEO Pedro Franceschi gets bonus points for using the phrase “maximize founder mode” in a press release sentence that also includes “mainstream economy.” Really, it's an elite-level vibe straddle.

  • by nemath on 1/23/26, 12:16 AM

    Should they have continued growing for a while before selling or was now the best ever time?

  • by whalesalad on 1/22/26, 11:14 PM

    Years ago I took a chance on hiring an engineer fresh out of a software bootcamp. Turned out to be one of the best engineers I have ever worked with - so much tenacity and thirst for learning new things. They went on to join Brex when the company was just starting out. What an awesome exit!

  • by B1FIDO on 1/23/26, 10:59 AM

      Mavis Beacon Approved
    https://m.xkcd.com/2206/

  • by ixxie on 1/23/26, 11:49 AM

    Brexit 2.0

  • by testfrequency on 1/22/26, 11:27 PM

    Does this mean Stripe is worth $1B?

  • by panny on 1/23/26, 6:18 AM

    Capital One are scumbags. I'm glad they are dying and spending their money on dying companies at the same time. Less than half valuation, lol.

  • by moomoo11 on 1/23/26, 1:52 AM

    so are the founders and employees fucked? wasn't this company valued at like 12b?

  • by kwanbix on 1/23/26, 3:01 AM

    More consolidation. What the end user needs.

  • by verdverm on 1/22/26, 10:16 PM

    They refused my business because I didn't have SV VC money

    Chase got it instead, but they are losing it next month because of their shenanigans and greed

    Wish crypto hadn't been co-opted by the same people and worse

  • by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 1/23/26, 1:49 AM

  • by churchill on 1/22/26, 9:45 PM

    Pretty steep haircut from their $12b peak in 2022. And that's before you factor in their revenue that's grown 2.5* from ~$312M in 2022. If their figures are to be believed, Capital one is getting an asset growing 50% YoY, for just 7* revenues.

    Maybe just pull a Bending Spoons after the acquisition, layoff most of the staff, and bring a lot of ops in-house and they'll be in profit ASAP.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 1/22/26, 9:46 PM