Recharge acquires Skio, creating subscription commerce giant for Shopify merchants

Recharge paid $105 million in cash for Skio, a striking outcome for a company that raised only about $8 million and built its business around the less glamorous mechanics of subscription billing. The sale gives Skio founder Kennan Davison a strong exit and gives Recharge a bigger hold on the Shopify subscription stack.

Announced on April 30, the deal combines two businesses that say they power more than 20,000 merchants and process over $20 billion in gross merchandise volume each year. Recharge says it handles 71% of subscriptions sold on Shopify stores, serves 20,000 brands and supports more than 100 million subscribers, scale that helps explain why the company viewed the acquisition as a way to widen its lead rather than chase growth through heavy fundraising.

Skio, founded in 2021 by Davison after he went through Y Combinator as a solo founder, had become a lean challenger with roughly 70 employees and, before the sale, more than $25 million in annual recurring revenue. Its customer list included Liquid I.V., Milk Bar, Polaroid, Barstool, Unilever, KraveBeauty, Boba Tea Protein and Siete, a roster that showed how subscription infrastructure has moved from niche software to a core operating system for consumer brands that depend on recurring payments, retention tools and billing flexibility.

Recharge chief executive Oisin O’Connor said both companies had a path forward on their own but chose a bigger one together, a sign of how consolidation is reshaping a market where data, merchant support and product speed matter as much as features. Skio chief executive Aidan Thibodeaux said the combination would allow more intentional product decisions and more proactive support, while Skio said it was now part of Recharge and described the move as building “the future of subscription infrastructure.” The company has also highlighted praise from brands such as Grüns, Magic Mind and Just Ingredients, reinforcing the appeal of a more responsive user experience.

The deal points to a broader shift in venture economics. In a market that now rewards capital efficiency over unchecked expansion, Skio’s exit shows how a company can still build meaningful value by keeping burn contained, holding onto customers and selling into a category with recurring demand. Recharge says it launched more than 150 products and updates in the past year, underlining how quickly the category is evolving. For Shopify merchants, the result is a larger platform with more data, more support and fewer reasons to rely on fragmented billing systems.