# Pedro Franceschi

> Pedro Franceschi is the co-founder and CEO of Brex, the corporate credit card company valued at over $10 billion and acquired by Capital One for $5.15 billion in 2026. A Brazilian programming prodigy who jailbroke the iPhone 3G at 13 and co-founded payments processor Pagar.me at 16, Franceschi dropped out of Stanford after one year to build Brex with co-founder Henrique Dubugras. Under his leadership, Brex grew from a Y Combinator startup in 2017 to serving thousands of high-growth companies including Airbnb, DoorDash, and Carta, fundamentally transforming how startups access corporate credit.

- **Role:** CEO at Brex (acquired by Capital One)
- **Organizations:** Brex, Pagar.me, Capital One, Coupang (Board Member), Stone (Former Board Member), Y Combinator
- **From:** Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- **Nationality:** Brazilian
- **Education:** Computer Science (dropped out), Stanford University
- **Known for:** First person to jailbreak iPhone 3G in Brazil at age 13, Co-founded Pagar.me at 16, scaled to 150+ employees and $1.5B in transactions, Won Microsoft's Startup of the Year prize with Pagar.me in 2014

## Career timeline

- **2008** — Started programming at age 8
- **2009** — Jailbroke iPhone 3G in Brazil at age 13, first person to do so in the country
- **2010** — Hacked iPhone software to make Siri understand Portuguese at age 11; spoke at TEDx
- **2012** — Met Henrique Dubugras through a Twitter argument; began receiving legal notices from Apple
- **2013** — Co-founded Pagar.me at age 16 with Henrique Dubugras
- **2014** — Pagar.me won Microsoft's Startup of the Year prize in Spark Awards
- **2016** — Sold Pagar.me after growing to 150 employees and $1.5B in transactions; enrolled at Stanford
- **2017** — Dropped out of Stanford; founded Brex in January with Henrique Dubugras through Y Combinator
- **2018** — Brex reached unicorn status ($1B valuation) at age 22
- **2021** — Joined board of Stone
- **2022** — Brex raised funding at $12.3 billion valuation; became billionaire; joined Coupang board
- **2023** — Left Stone board; experienced burnout and restructured approach to work-life balance
- **2024** — Switched to 'founder mode' at Brex, implementing single company roadmap
- **2026** — Capital One acquired Brex for $5.15 billion; continues as CEO of Brex division

## Achievements

- First person to jailbreak iPhone 3G in Brazil at age 13
- Co-founded Pagar.me at 16, scaled to 150+ employees and $1.5B in transactions
- Won Microsoft's Startup of the Year prize with Pagar.me in 2014
- Built Brex to $1B valuation in less than 2 years
- Became youngest billionaire in Latin America at age 26 in 2022
- Grew Brex to serve thousands of companies including Airbnb, DoorDash, and Carta
- Raised Brex to $12.3 billion valuation
- Sold Brex to Capital One for $5.15 billion in largest bank-fintech acquisition in history
- Serves on board of Coupang, South Korean e-commerce giant
- Featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 and other entrepreneurship lists

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Capital One completed acquisition of Brex; Pedro continues as CEO of Brex division
- **2026-01** — Capital One announced acquisition of Brex for $5.15 billion
- **2024-10** — Appeared on CNBC discussing AI-powered finance and Brex's product roadmap
- **2024-09** — Publicly announced switching to 'founder mode' with single company roadmap
- **2024-05** — Featured on CNBC Disruptor 50 list, discussing AI streamlining company finances

## Links

- Website: https://pedrofranceschi.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pfranceschi/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/pedroh96
- GitHub: https://github.com/pedrofranceschi
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pedrohfranceschi/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/pedro-franceschi
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-03