Dive Brief:

• ReCharge, a subscription payment software company, has raised $227 million from ICONIQ Growth, Bain Capital Ventures and Summit Partners, bringing its valuation to $2.1 billion, according to a May 6 press release.

• ReCharge is set to expand its platform by adding new features for customers and expanding its offerings to the European market in the coming year.

• The company, founded in 2014, provides e-commerce businesses the opportunity to add subscription-based payment options for recurring payments. 

Dive Insight:

ReCharge's new CFO Stephanie Lemmerman, who was most recently at the meditation and wellness company Headspace, aims to add more features on the company's platform and work "closely with the team on our strategy for international expansion," on the heels of the recent funding round, Lemmerman said.

The company is adding features like transactional short message service [SMS] notifications for merchants to have direct communication with the customer. Customers can pay, add products and cancel subscription-based orders directly through SMSs.

ReCharge has about 20 million subscribers and 15,000 merchants using its services, Lemmerman said. The company's customers include Harry's, a men's shaving and hygiene product company, and Oatly, a plant-based food company that recently sold stock in an initial public offering (IPO).

In 2020, at least 50% of international consumers had at least two subscription payments leaving their bank account every month, with 27% expecting this number to increase in 2021, according to a study by Paysafe.

The Santa Monica-based ReCharge raised $50 million last year in January from Summit Partners. The company has about 320 employees, up from 140 in January, 2020, Lemmerman said.

ReCharge expects its user base to grow "significantly" in the coming months, Lemmerman said. Fiji Water and feminine care company Lola are other companies that use ReCharge's subscription payment software to bill customers on a monthly basis. Companies in food, beverage and beauty products industries are among of the biggest users of ReCharge's services, Lemmerman said.

"Existing subscriptions businesses were really doubling down and using the platform to scale the business," Lemmerman said. "We saw a lot of businesses have a really successful year in 2020, despite COVID-19 and you know now they have desires to expand internationally."

ReCharge is taking aim at growth in Europe because many of its existing customers have international expansion plans there, Lemmerman said.

"We know that there's a large e-commerce market there already and that's a lot of the behaviors that we see here in the U.S. and the market is similar there," Lemmerman said.