Ecommerce subscriptions platform ReCharge raises $277M

ReCharge, a subscription payments management platform for ecommerce companies, has raised $277 million in what is the seven-year-old company’s first round of funding.

The raise comes as consumer brands across the spectrum have had to adapt to a new commercial landscape. This is partly due to the pandemic, which has impacted how consumers buy things, but also to a broader push toward direct-to-consumer (D2C) relationships that seek to take more control by bypassing conventional retail outlets and targeting customers directly.

Founded out of Santa Monica, California in 2014, ReCharge offers a range of billing and payment management tools, with support for payment providers such as Stripe, Braintree, Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and more. It also integrates with many of the prominent commerce tools to support discounts, free trials, taxes, and shipping as part of its subscription billing platform. And it caters to those who would rather make a one-time purchase than commit to a weekly or monthly delivery.

Above: ReCharge: Subscription coffee

Custom commerce

Through ReCharge’s APIs, businesses can customize their subscription offering and create their own workflows, with support for a “headless” architecture, in which the front-end content and backend technology are separated. This enables more freedom to combine technologies for each touchpoint.

“ReCharge is focused on building a cloud-based subscription management platform for businesses of all sizes,” cofounder and CEO Oisin O’Connor told VentureBeat. “We take an API-first approach to our product development, which allows a high level of customization by our most sophisticated merchants, while most merchants still use our product out of [the] box to start offering subscriptions within minutes.”

Tying into this are performance measurement and analytics, which give businesses insights into their revenue and customers. This lets them track their key performance indicators (KPIs) and carry out cohort analyses to improve retention and figure out why customers cancel their subscription.

Above: ReCharge analytics

The company, which said it’s cash-flow positive, claims to power subscriptions for 15,000 merchants covering 20 million users, including men’s grooming brand Harry’s and U.K. craft beer giant BrewDog, which entered the subscription sector last year.

While there are other players in this space, including Bold Commerce, which raised $27 million a few months back, ReCharge is notable for its largely under-the-radar status — it was entirely bootstrapped until last year’s $277 million growth capital injection, which was just announced today. Now it has secured a number of big-name backers, including Iconiq Growth, Summit Partners, and Bain Capital Ventures.