Capital One has agreed to acquire payments and spend-management startup Brex for $5.15 billion, marking the latest high-profile deal under founder and chief executive Richard Fairbank.
The transaction, disclosed alongside Capital One’s fourth-quarter earnings, will be financed through a 50% cash and 50% stock structure.
Brex was previously valued at $12.3 billion, highlighting the sharp repricing seen across the fintech sector since the peak of the low-interest-rate era. Capital One shares fell around 3% following the announcement.
The acquisition follows Capital One’s $35 billion takeover of Discover Financial Services last year, a deal that gave the bank access to one of the few payment networks operating at global scale. Together, the transactions underscore Fairbank’s ambition to expand Capital One’s footprint beyond consumer credit cards and deeper into payments infrastructure and business finance.
“Since our founding, we set out to build a payments company at the frontier of the technology revolution,” Fairbank said. “Acquiring Brex accelerates this journey, especially in the business payments marketplace.”
He added that Brex has achieved something rare among fintech firms by building a vertically integrated platform that combines corporate cards, banking, and spend-management software into a single system.
Founded in 2017, Brex initially gained traction by offering corporate cards to venture-backed startups. The company later broadened its focus, expanding into services for small and medium-sized businesses as well as larger enterprises. Today, Brex counts more than 25,000 clients, including companies such as Robinhood, Zoom, Anthropic, DoorDash, and TikTok.
Despite its growth, the deal price represents a more than 50% decline from Brex’s last private valuation, reflecting broader pressures on fintech firms as funding conditions tightened and profitability came under closer scrutiny. The company has also undergone multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years. Brex chief executive Pedro Franceschi said combining with Capital One would allow the company to scale faster than it could as an independent business.
Following completion of the deal, Franceschi will continue to lead Brex as part of Capital One. The transaction is expected to close mid-2026, subject to customary regulatory and closing conditions.
BofA Securities advised Capital One on the deal, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz serving as legal counsel. Centerview Partners acted as financial advisor to Brex, with legal advice provided by Wilson Sonsini and Simpson Thacher.
The acquisition further cements Capital One’s position as one of the most active US banks in fintech consolidation, as traditional lenders look to combine scale with modern, software-driven financial platforms.
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