1128: Capital Discipline in a Usage-Based World | Ben Gammell, President & CFO, Brex

In 2018, Brex made a defining decision: rather than rely on middleware providers like Stripe or Marqeta, it built its own payments infrastructure from the ground up. That move, Ben Gammell tells us, gave the company a direct integration with MasterCard and the ability to issue corporate cards in “over 50 plus local currencies.” The choice, he explains, was born of necessity at the time but has since become a structural advantage, offering customers greater control and global reach. That same principle of intentional investment extends to Brex’s software strategy. The company designs its expense management platform to meet the demands of sophisticated, high-growth businesses such as Arm and Anthropic. The result, Gammell tells us, is a solution that not only competes with legacy providers like Concur but also improves accessibility for smaller firms “with aspirations of being the next DoorDash or Coinbase.” Partnerships further expand the ecosystem. Because Brex controls its processing stack internally, it can integrate with best-of-breed solutions—Navan in travel, Zip and Coupa in procurement—delivering the breadth that global enterprises require while keeping Brex at the center of the transaction. Looking outward, the company recently began expanding into Europe. Gammell tells us the first priority is to better serve U.S. multinationals with operations abroad. Only later will Brex pursue wholly foreign clients. Still, he emphasizes discipline: the U.S. remains “the largest market by a country mile,” and maintaining focus there is key to balancing growth ambitions with profitability and investor confidence.