- Brex CEO Henrique Dubugras is fundraising more than $1 billion in loans for startups affected by the SVB collapse.
- Dubugras aims to give out loans as soon as next week so companies can make payroll.
Henrique Dubugras, CEO of the fintech company Brex, is working to pull together more than $1 billion in funds to provide bridge loans for startups affected by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
"As of yesterday, we've received $1.5 billion in requests from nearly 1,000 companies," a spokesperson for Brex told Insider. "We are trying to raise as much capital as we can."
The spokesperson told Insider the funds are intended to help startups make payroll next week and stay afloat while their money is tied up. Dubugras joins several other tech leaders who led fundraising efforts this weekend — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who reportedly gave six-figures to the CEO of Rad AI — after Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by regulators on Friday.
"We are working quickly with third-party capital providers and Brex Asset Management to have emergency funds available to startups early next week," the spokesperson said.
Brex has not disclosed the terms of the loans, or how much money it has raised so far, TechCrunch reported. But Dubugras told the outlet he hopes any customers who take on loans will remain with Brex after the dust settles.
"The reason we're doing it is obviously we want to support a community, that's very important," Dubugras told TechCrunch. "The business reason we're doing this is because we'll fund these loans and our business accounts, and we hope people stay our customers right after that."
One major question facing the plan is fraud, and vetting the companies which have applied for bridge loans. In a statement to Insider, the Brex spokesperson said the company has a strong assessment process, while Dubugras told TechCrunch most of the requests appear to be from "real startups that had real businesses with real deposits."
"[T]here are verification processes in place to ensure there is no fraud," a spokesperson told Insider.
"Talk about a day I'll remember for the rest of my life," Dubugras tweeted Saturday.