Brix CEO Henrique Dubograss It’s currently working to raise over $1 billion over the weekend to help fund Emergency bridge credit line He believes it will help startup clients affected by the Silicon Valley bank collapse make payroll next week. DuBograss declined to comment on how much principal has been allocated to the line of credit so far, but said he’s been keeping calls in an effort to secure funds.
“We’re working with a lot of lenders this weekend, to raise as much money as we can,” DuPoughras said. To date, more than $1.3 billion in payroll loan applications have been submitted from more than 500 applicants. The same people asking for a billion dollars have about 10 billion in total deposits [at SVB].
The founder says the demand is increasing every five minutes. And while Dubograss said the eventual closing is “TBD,” he said it was “very likely” that they would close some capital.
One question is whether the terms of the deal will be favorable to the founders, or, as one entrepreneur suggested to me today, will the sharks come out?
Brexit did not disclose the terms of the deal but said they do not make money on these loans. “This is where we work to kind of get the price right, but think of it this way: There’s not a lot of information right now and coming up with over $1 billion in a weekend, it’s not easy,” Dubograss said. I think we’re just trying to see if we can figure out something that works for everyone and create an option.”
Another question related to the quality of the applicants. As one of the founders told TechCrunch yesterday, incorporating people’s flow “is the easiest way to invite fraud and kick it out of banking ecosystems.” DuBograss said the quality of the SVB client base is “very good.”
“Most of the clients we get are real startups with real businesses with real deposits — and they link data to their SVB account that has real money in it,” he said. “We’re checking that these customers are real customers for sure — and that’s not my concern.”
“I hope the lesson from this industry is, if it’s a bank that’s not JPMorgan, it’s not safe. I think that would be terrible for our ecosystem and for America.” The lesson, Dubograss believes, is instead for founders to spread their risk. “I think the safest place in my view for your money is not in a bank account, but in a money market fund and cash management account, which is why we do that at Brex.”
While Dubugras is focused on raising money and stresses that Brex is practically ready for this and is not trying to cash in on desperate founders, The company will have to prove that it can achieve this.
With SVB down, BRICS was seen as a formidable competitor looking to profit from the money transfer. Sure enough, sources tell TechCrunch that the fintech has been taking in billions of dollars in deposits. Then the SVB shut down the wires, and hours later, the FDIC seized it.
“Obviously, the reason we’re doing this is because we want to support the community, and that’s very important,” said DuBograss. “The commercial reason we’re doing this is that we’re going to fund these loans and our business accounts, and hopefully, people will still be our customers right after that.”
DuBograss isn’t the only tech executive who has lobbied others to help provide founder loans. Another CEO is raising money for an emergency fund for climate startups, while others are looking for ways to create funding sources for founder groups that have historically been overlooked and marginalized.
I’m talking about a day I will remember for the rest of my life
– Henrique Dubugras (@hdubugras) March 11, 2023
If you have an interesting tip or talk about events that happened in the SVB, you can reach Natasha Mascarenhas on Twitter @nmasc_ or on Signal at +1 925 271 0912. Requests to remain anonymous will be respected.
