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这两人只读一年大学即退学创业,目前身价8.6亿

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金融科技初创企业Brex Inc.的创始人23岁身价已达8.6亿美元。图片来源:Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

They didn’t complete a single year of college, but Henrique Dubugras, 23, and Pedro Franceschi, 22, have already amassed a veteran’s share of Silicon Valley experience. Now they have the net worth to match.

They are the founders and top executives of Brex Inc. a fintech startup recently valued at $2.6 billion, with an unlikely origin story. Dubugras was just 14 when he built his first company, the maker of an online video game, and shut it down after getting notices for patent infringement. Soon after, he teamed up with Franceschi for another venture -- payment processor Pagar.me, which grew to 150 employees before they sold it in 2016. The pair then enrolled at Stanford University, but didn’t make through freshman year before dropping out to found Brex.

Brex, which launched its first product last year, has become a fintech darling, catapulting its founders into the ranks of the richest entrepreneurs -- on paper at least. Today their stakes in the company are worth an estimated $430 million each, according to an analysis by EquityZen, a marketplace for shares of tech firms that haven’t yet gone public.

The pair’s ascent is rapid even by Silicon Valley standards, where dropping out of Stanford to launch a startup is almost a cliché. Brex, founded two years ago, has become one of the fastest American companies ever to reach a multibillion-dollar valuation, joining the ranks of startups like Uber Technologies Inc. and scooter unicorns Lime and Bird Rides Inc.

In 2017, Brex was valued at $25 million, according to data from PitchBook. Its latest funding round pegged its valuation at more than $2 billion. The company’s key product is a credit card for startups and their employees that relies on real-time data, rather than traditional credit scores. One of the drivers of Brex’s towering valuation, its founders have said, is its potential to expand into other businesses.

The firm has also recently introduced credit cards for e-commerce and life-sciences companies. In addition to cards for startups, Brex has said it plans to cater to larger firms, offering cards with tailored rewards as well as expense management.

Brex declined to comment for this story. Dubugras had said previously that Brex’s new e-commerce business accounts for about one-third of its revenue.

Another fintech wunderkind, Max Levchin, who at 23 co-founded a company that would eventually become PayPal Holdings Inc., is an investor in Brex. So is Peter Thiel, also a PayPal co-founder, as well as the Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund and Ribbit Capital.

23岁的亨里克·杜布格拉斯和22岁的佩德罗·弗兰切斯基连一年大学都没有上完,但他们已经积累了丰富的硅谷经验。现在还拥有了同样雄厚的净资产。

他们是Brex Inc.公司的创始人和管理人。Brex是一家金融科技初创公司,近期估值达26亿美元,这个公司的发家故事听起来有点像天方夜谭。杜布格拉斯14岁就创建了自己的第一家公司,制作在线视频游戏,但在收到专利侵权通知后就把公司关了。不久之后,他与弗朗切斯基合作创办了另一家企业——支付处理服务提供商Pagar.me。该公司在2016年被卖出前,员工人数已经增至150人。两人随后被斯坦福大学录取,但大学一年级没有上完就辍学创办了Brex。

去年才推出首款产品的Brex已经成为了金融科技领域里的宠儿,公司的创始人因此跻身最富有的创业家行列——至少理论上是这样。提供未上市科技公司股票交易服务的EquityZen公司的一项分析表明,目前两位创始人在该公司的股份价值估计分别为4.3亿美元。

即便以硅谷的标准来衡量,两人的崛起也称得上十分迅速。在硅谷,从斯坦福辍学创办企业几乎已经是老生常谈了。两年前成立的Brex已经成为美国历史上估值最快达到数十亿美元的公司之一,加入了Uber Technologies Inc.、电动小轮摩托车独角兽企业Lime和Bird Rides Inc.等公司的行列。

根据PitchBook的数据,2017年,Brex的估值为2500万美元。该公司最新一轮融资后的估值为超过20亿美元。Brex的核心产品是面向初创企业及其员工的信用卡,这种信用卡依靠的是实时数据,而非传统的信用评分。Brex的创始人曾经表示,公司估值飙升的原因之一是它具有向其他业务扩张的潜力。

该公司最近还为电子商务和生命科学公司推出了信用卡。除了为初创公司提供信用卡外,Brex曾经表示有计划为更大的公司提供信用卡,包含量身定制的积分和费用管理方案。

Brex拒绝评论该消息。杜布格拉斯此前曾经表示,Brex新的电商业务约占其营收的三分之一。

另一位金融科技界神童、23岁联合创办了日后的PayPal Holdings Inc.公司的马克斯·莱夫钦也是Brex的投资者之一。其他投资人还包括同为PayPal联合创始人的彼得·泰尔、凯鹏华盈数字增长基金(Kleiner Perkins Digital Growth Fund)和Ribbit Capital。(财富中文网)

译者:Agatha

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