Skio acquired by Recharge for $105 million in cash

Skio, a subscription payment startup, has been acquired by its competitor Recharge. The transaction is notable for its capital efficiency, with the startup securing a major exit relative to its external funding. On Thursday, the companies announced the acquisition, which was completed as an all-cash transaction.

Key financial metrics of the transaction and Skio’s growth include:

• Exit value: $105 million cash
• Total funding raised: only raised $8 million from investors
• Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) at sale: $32 million ARR
• Total transaction volume: $4 billion in payments processed

The path to this acquisition involved a significant shift in the company’s leadership. Founder Kennan Frost had not been running the company for about two years, according to Skio’s current CEO, Aidan Thibodeaux. Under the leadership of Thibodeaux and founding CTO Andrew Chen, the company focused its resources on product development rather than aggressive marketing or sales expenditures. Thibodeaux and Chen managed sales calls themselves, prioritizing product-led growth to scale the business.

Frost’s path to founding the company began after he experienced a panic attack, which led him to leave his engineering role at Pinterest. He subsequently entered Y Combinator (a startup accelerator), where he noted that he struggled significantly during the accelerator batch before pivoting to the subscription payment model. Within three years, Frost grew the company to $10 million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). He credited the subsequent scaling to his colleagues, stating that the “team came together and turned this early traction into a real company,” according to founder Kennan Frost. Frost retained a chair role on the board following his departure from daily operations.

At the time of the sale, Skio had scaled to $32 million ARR and processed $4 billion in payments. The acquisition has been publicly acknowledged by Skio’s investors, including the startup accelerator Y Combinator and Nicolas Wittenborn, the founder of venture capital (VC) firm Adjacent. Additionally, Frost’s Y Combinator advisor, Gustaf Alströmer, confirmed the terms of the sale. Following his transition out of Skio, Frost has launched a new startup called Icon, which offers an ad-generation product named AdMaker.

Why it matters

This acquisition highlights the potential for high-efficiency, capital-light startups to achieve significant scale and nine-figure exits by prioritizing product-led growth over heavy external funding.