A startup can have millions of venture dollars in the bank and not get approved for a credit card. That's because old-school banks and credit institutions want to see a credit history, which few new companies have, before issuing that precious piece of plastic.
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, both age 22, founded Brex in 2017 in order to address this problem. The company gives corporate credit cards to startups based on their available cash balance — including money raised through venture — rather than credit history. It launched out of stealth in June and has 1,000 customers signed up.
Brex has raised a total of $57 million from investors, including PayPal cofounders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, early Facebook investor Yuri Milner, and Y Combinator.
With their permission, we're republishing the Brex Series B pitch deck to show how Silicon Valley startups win over their investors. Take a look.
The deck starts with the company's edgy logo.
The next slide shows the people behind Brex and their credentials, as well as the Silicon Valley A-listers who previously backed Brex.
The deck lays out the problem Brex is trying to solve. These are real replies from credit institutions where Brex applied for credit cards.
Even if a startup secures a credit card, it doesn't have a ton of control over how much employees spend or where.
Let's pause. Look at this slide. It's hideous.
Dubugras said making the presentation "pretty" wasn't a priority.
He worked with Brex's chief financial officer, Michael Tannenbaum, to put together the pitch deck in two nights. They didn't spend too much time on it, Dubugras said, because he wanted to show investors that they were too busy working on company priorities.
"At the end of the day, investors will see through any pitch deck. I think that the important thing is to be super clear and objective," Dubugras said.
This chart shows the size of the market opportunity.
Then Brex explains how it's going to solve credit cards for startups.
Brex aims to provide a quick and effective credit card option.
Each slide has one message only to avoid overloading the audience.
The deck gets into some of the coolest features.
A startup can mandate that large transactions on an employee's credit card require approval before spending. They can also set credit limits by employee, team, or merchant — like a monthly budget for Uber rides.
Employees can take a photo of a receipt, and Brex will use software to scan the image and match it to a transaction already in the system.
The employer can get a high-level view of where money is going.
I can't think of anything to say about this slide other than it's ugly.
Not all investors agree with Dubugras's assessment that looks don't matter.
I shared this story with a seed-stage investor based in San Francisco, and she doubted that an unattractive pitch deck leaves a good impression on a venture capitalist.
"You want people to make an effort. If you can't remember to even take the time to edit your pitch deck, and you want $500,000 from me, it's like, no thanks," the investor said.
Fortunately, Brex has the metrics to impress.
Low churn means customers aren't leaving your product. Data show startups find Brex useful and keep their accounts as they scale.
As customers grow, they spend more on their Brex cards.
The pitch deck ends by circling back on the mission. Brex wants to reinvent underwriting for startups seeking access to credit cards.
With these 19 slides, it raised $57 million to do just that.
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