Capital One Financial Corp. has agreed to acquire fintech startup Brex in a deal valued at $5.15 billion, the transaction was disclosed on Thursday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Capital One will pay 50% in cash and 50% in stock.
Brex was previously valued at $12.3 billion, highlighting the valuation reset that has swept through the fintech sector amid higher interest rates and tighter funding conditions.
Capital One founder and CEO Richard Fairbank said the acquisition reflects the bank’s long-term strategy to build a payments business shaped by technological innovation.
“Since our founding, we set out to build a payments company at the frontier of the technology revolution,” Fairbank said in a release. “Acquiring Brex accelerates this journey, especially in the business payments marketplace.”
He added that Brex brought together corporate cards, banking, and spend management software, calling it a vertically integrated platform built “from the bottom of the tech stack to the top.”
A fintech built for fast-growing companies
Founded in 2017, Brex established its reputation by providing corporate cards and cash management tools tailored for startups and technology companies.
Over time, it expanded its customer base to include larger enterprises, providing payments, expense management, and banking services.
Brex now serves a broad mix of clients across sectors, including Robinhood, Zoom, and Anthropic.
While the company initially gained attention for extending credit to startups during a period of low interest rates, it later diversified beyond technology into other industries.
How it fits into Capital One’s growth plan
Under Fairbank, a rare founder-CEO of a major US bank, Capital One has pursued large strategic deals.
Last year, Capital One agreed to buy Discover Financial for about $35 billion, a transaction that gave the bank access to one of the few payment networks operating at scale in the US.
The Brex purchase aligns with that strategy by expanding Capital One’s presence in business payments and software, an area the company says is key to its broader payments ambitions.
Stablecoins and the crypto angle
The deal is also notable for Brex’s growing relevance to crypto and digital assets.
In September 2025, Brex announced plans to launch native stablecoin payments, saying it would become the first global corporate card platform to enable instant balance payments using stablecoins.
“Stablecoins make it possible to move millions of dollars across borders in seconds,” Brex CEO Pedro Franceschi said at the time, adding that Brex aimed to give companies a single, secure platform to manage critical payments.
Several crypto and blockchain-focused firms, including Figure, Solana, and Alchemy, joined the waitlist for the product, showing Brex’s position in the digital asset ecosystem.
Strategic rationale
Capital One said it became increasingly convinced that Brex’s model represented the future of business payments, according to a CNBC report.
Franceschi told CNBC that the company did not pursue a sale out of necessity.
“We didn’t have to pursue this acquisition, our growth was incredibly strong,” Franceschi said.
He added that combining Brex’s technology with Capital One’s scale and resources would allow the platform to grow faster than it could as an independent firm.