Brex and Ramp Want to Take On Amex. First, They’ll Fight Each Other
New financial details illustrate how two highly valued fintech startups are competing for a share of the $1 trillion corporate card market.
Brex employees haven’t had to look hard for reminders of their startup’s ambition to reign supreme over the big corporate card companies: The Wi-Fi network password at one of its former offices used to be “BuyAmex.”
But Brex is facing increasingly fierce competition, including from a two-year-old copycat named Ramp that’s catching up fast, according to financial information on both companies reviewed by The Information. That rivalry could distract the older fintech startup from its larger goals.
Brex, valued at $12.3 billion in October, expects to increase its annualized revenue by 90% to about $320 million this year as transaction volumes—dollars spent on its credit cards—balloon to $12 billion, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Ramp has already grown to about one-third of Brex’s size by several metrics.