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Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

reuters.com

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Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#231

Post by matwood »

marssaxman wrote: post #134
blonder wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask why you eschew the basically free money that comes from credit card rewards as a responsible credit card user?

Is it really free money? Actual cash ? I've always seen rewards programs advertised in terms of discounts on specific products or services: consumer electronics, cruise vacations, furniture, gift cards, and other things I rarely spend money on. I expect it to be an overstock clearinghouse, something like the old Columbia House record club, where you would page through a catalog of random stuff looking for anything yo…

Maybe it once was like what you're thinking, but not anymore.

There are fee free cards that give cash back as statement credits (AMEX Blue iirc). No limitations on what you can spend it on. The Apple Card does 2% cash back which you can just transfer to your bank account.

The Amazon card requires a Prime membership, but gives 5% back on anything bought at Amazon. I bought my last TV using the 5% back I had received.

Then there are top tier cards like the Chase Sapphire or Cap One Venture X that have yearly fees. But, if you take 1+ trips/year they immediately pay for themselves and more (credit for global entry, yearly statement credit for travel that almost equals the yearly fee, lounge entry, etc...). I routinely use points from the Venture X to cover travel expenses like tickets, rentals, hotels, eating out, etc...

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#232

Post by pjc50 »

bflesch wrote: post #45
testfrequency wrote: post #30

Does this mean Stripe is worth $1B?

Stripe has for years helped non-EU companies to do tax fraud in the EU, and in a just world their management would be charged. Every time a customer in the EU pays with Stripe, they exactly know if they are a private customer or not and in which country that customer is located in. Stripe also knows who the counterparty is ("their merchant"). Yet Stripe systematically enabled their merchants to avoid paying appropria…

Why do you think that payment processors are obligated to intercept VAT? They're not.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#233

Post by another_twist »

echelon wrote: post #44
asdev wrote: post #22

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.

If Ramp is getting all the business, is there any reason to think they wouldn't command a much higher valuation? Brex killed a ton of their customer relationships to "refocus" on larger biz. That created a lot of negative sentiment for the brand. > All Ramp did was spend more on ads and marketing That's distribution. It matters. Ramp has a much more synonymous name, better recognition, and less bad reputation.

Distribution is king. Kudos to Ramp for that. My weird thesis is that for whatever reason Ruby on Rails shops just seem to survive more. I wonder if someone did a stack specific survival rate analysis.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#234

Post by another_twist »

panny wrote: post #196

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.

Stock up 15% up YoY. That company isnt dying by any measure. They just acquired a business banking company on the cheap.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#235

Post by testaccount28 »

maest wrote: post #142
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key with debit cards is the incentive misalignment. With credit, it’s the bank that loses out, not you. With debit, it’s you. Until the consequences are equaled by legislation, there’s no world where they get equal treatment by the bank

With credit, it's the merchant who loses out. They get bullied by the credit card provider to eat losses. Relatedly, the credit card system is truly a tragedy of the commons situation. It's a ~2% drag on the economy for what? For some silly points with constrained value and an excuse to not build better financial infrastructure. The frustrating thing is that, given the current equilibrium, you're a sucker for not usi…

it's transaction fraud insurance. like any insurance, you pay a small amount regularly, and in return get protection in case of large sporadic loss.

points are just premiums: some insurance consumers are a greater risk, and so pay more.

any convenience features are built on top of the insurance product: _because_ all players are covered, _therefore_ i can make online purchases. _since_ (i have a justified expectation that) i am not liable for fraudulent use of my account number, _therefore_ i can read it to a customer service rep over the phone.

we can of course debate whether 2% is a good price for this coverage! but there must be some price paid here -- if the insurance broker doesn't collect it, the scammers will. this, after all, is the real tragedy.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#236

Post by pinnochio »

qeternity wrote: post #227
DSingularity wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you start a startup? Is it to build an idea you believe in and believe it is potentially lucrative or is it so you can go through the motions, say the trendy things, and get outcompeted because in the end you are primarily focused on getting acquired with a 1B exit?

Spoken like someone who has never started a business. Brex raised much less than $5b and Capital One apparently thinks it is worth more than that (otherwise they wouldn’t buy it). This is called value creation.

Definitely. No company has ever overpaid for another company. No fraud or FOMO-driven overvaluation has ever occurred in an acquisition. And all acquisitions have always turned out for the best. It's all 100% pure value creation.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#237

Post by artembugara »

giorgioz wrote: post #216

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.

+1 for Mercury.

Another good thing about Mercury is that in case you’re stuck/not being treated fairly, you can just email/publicly mention Immad (CEO) and he’ll reply within minutes and will look into this

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#238

Post by yurishimo »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #223
Intermernet wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't enjoy debt?

What do credit cards have to do with debt? I've used them for over a decade and never a carried balance

Morally, they're also quite problematic, imo. Even if you aren't paying interest because you pay off the balance every month, CC companies can only offer points and cash back and all of that other stuff on the backs of the customers who aren't able to pay it off every month. It's a subsidy of the financially illiterate to those who are. If the predatory 20%+ interest rates were banned, the points and rewards programs would disappear overnight.

I know this isn't popular in the USA, but when compared to the rest of the western world, consumer debt is off the charts insane in America and it doesn't have to be that way. I've lived on both sides of the pond and I much prefer a society where people buy things that they can afford instead of financing everything on the back of a hope and dream that they will for sure pay off the balance this month.

As for the "but muh security!!" argument that I can hear someone typing, having a credit card for security is a terrible argument. You should be lobbying your politicians to regulate financial institutions to build better systems that are not susceptible to such obvious exploits and fraud. Again, much of the world has solved this problem to the point where I can post my bank account number on my business website and nothing bad ever happens. Customers can wire me money directly without approval and I have to manually approve all outgoing transactions at least once (scheduled transfers are still possible); it's not rocket science!

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#240

Post by everfrustrated »

bflesch wrote: post #45
testfrequency wrote: post #30

Does this mean Stripe is worth $1B?

Stripe has for years helped non-EU companies to do tax fraud in the EU, and in a just world their management would be charged. Every time a customer in the EU pays with Stripe, they exactly know if they are a private customer or not and in which country that customer is located in. Stripe also knows who the counterparty is ("their merchant"). Yet Stripe systematically enabled their merchants to avoid paying appropria…

How is this any different to US users? Do you think stripe is correctly remitting US sales and county taxes?

The obligation has always been on the company making the sale not the processor.

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