Fintech unicorn Brex, which provides technology solutions for handling corporate finances, has announced a $425 million Series D investment round led by Tiger Global.
The round brings the company's valuation to $7.4 billion, placing it in a leading position in the competitive world of corporate spend companies. Ramp, a rival of Brex, finished a two-part round worth $115 million just a few weeks ago.
Brex evolved from a credit card provider for startups to offering a full suite of technology solutions for businesses of all kinds, including employee and vendor cards and tools for tracking expenses and enforcing spend policies across companies.
"We used to say no to a lot of businesses," Henrique Dubugras, founder and co-CEO of Brex, told Cheddar. "Now we're saying yes."
Mid-sized businesses, however, are still the company's main clientele. To better serve these customers, Brex earlier this week launched an all-in-one dashboard for viewing credit card and cash accounts and managing bill pay software.
“Growing and maintaining a business should not depend on how good a small business owner is at managing their finances,” Cosmin Nicolaescu, CTO of Brex, said in a press release.
Dubugras said the pandemic has done little to hamper that growth area.
"Even though a lot of small businesses have suffered during the pandemic, it created opportunity for a lot more small businesses to be created," he said. "That's a lot of the business that we're serving."
These newer companies, he added, are more inclined to choose online-only solutions to serve their banking needs.
"Traditional mid-market companies... now understand that they need to automate their processes, reduce costs, digitize, and improve employee experience," Dubugras said.
The company plans to spend its new investment on a combination of hiring and product engineering, as well as shoring up its own finances for the future.
"Brex wants to survive any kind of pandemic, any kind of recession, so having a strong balance sheet and just having a lot of money in the bank for anything that might happen is also super important to us," Dubugras said.
Nestlé has dismissed its CEO Laurent Freixe after an investigation into an undisclosed relationship with a direct subordinate. The company announced on Monday that the dismissal was effective immediately. An investigation found that Freixe violated Nestlé’s code of conduct. He had been CEO for a year. Philipp Navratil, a longtime Nestlé executive, will replace him. Chairman Paul Bulcke stated that the decision was necessary to uphold the company’s values and governance. Navratil began his career with Nestlé in 2001 and has held various roles, including CEO of Nestlé's Nespresso division since 2024.
Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet. One of the companies will include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other will include brands like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. When the company formed in 2015 it wanted to capitalize on its massive scale, but shifting tastes complicated those plans, with households seeking to introduce healthier options at the table. Kraft Heinz's net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
