Brex is a startup that has come to the market to rebuilt B2B financial products, starting with a corporate card for technology companies. They do this by helping startups of all sizes (from recently incorporated to later-stage companies) to get a card that has 20x higher limits instantly. This service completely automates expense management, kills receipt tracking and magically integrates with accounting systems.
Brex was founded last year by Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, two young engineers, both age 22. They had previously founded Pagar.me, one of the largest payment processors in Brazil with over $1.5 billion in GMV. Up to now, this startup is backed by the co-founders of Paypal, Y Combinator, Ribbit Capital, Yuri Milner, and Carl Pascarella (former CEO of Visa).
As of today, Brex has raised a total of $57 million from investors and recently, they allowed to make public their Series B pitch deck. That's why we couldn't resist making a teardown about it. Also, we took the liberty of doing a redesign in the slides. (You'll understand why in just a moment).
Here's the pick deck:
Right after the first slide, (that only has Brex's logo with a black background), you have the Team and Investors slide.
In our redesigned version, we decided to add images to each team member and organized better the logos of each investor. That way, you can have a better and more precise idea of who's behind this and who's supporting it.
In one of the problem slides, Brex tries to visually highlight some pain points that users have to deal with, such as the outdated interface of banks or the credit processor share among surveyed community banks.
Since this slide was a bit hideous to look at, we redesigned it to make it look more appealing and understandable. We made sure that the information was readable and clear.
With a 5 point list on the "Initial Focus of Tech Companies," Brex explains how is going to solve credit cards for startups.
In the redesigned version, we added an icon for each specific point. That way, the slide won't have only text, now the information is supported with a visual element.
Later on, the deck gets into some of the coolest features, where it covers aspects such as:
These slides should have been more appealing, yet, they ended up looking very simple.
Since Brex is showing the "coolest features" in this section, we decided to redesign the slides in a way that it looked clean but very eye-catching. We were making sure that the vital information was standing out.
Almost at the end, we get to the metrics section. Let's just say that fortunately, Brex has some impressive numbers that almost make you forget about the fact that the slides look anything but appealing.
In these slides, Brex showcases how well they are doing with churn, since it's exhibit as "negative churn" meaning that customers aren't leaving the product. Also, in the table chart, they can prove that, as customers grow, they spend more on their Brex cards.
At least for this section, we didn't do much of a redesign, because the information was numerical. However, we did pass the data into Slidebean, which automatically creates interactive charts, making the presentation more dynamic than ever.
The pitch deck ends by restating their mission. Brex wants to reinvent underwriting for startups who are seeking access to credit cards.
In the redesigned version, we decided to add a background image + an image of the actual product.
The result of combining these elements into the slide created a huge difference in comparison with the original one.
Here’s the complete pitch deck:
What are your thoughts on Brex's pitch deck? Did you like the redesigned version better? Let us know in the comments!
Update August 2021: Our team took the challenge of redesigning Brex Pitch Deck again. Here's the result:
This is a functional model you can use to create your own formulas and project your potential business growth. Instructions on how to use it are on the front page.