Yesterday, Chargebee, a subscription billing and revenue management platform, announced it will acquire customer retention platform Brightback. Brightback provides its customers with automated solutions to increase customer retention and lifetime value. On average, the company reduces 23% of online cancellations, while also retaining free trial customers and gathering key customer data. Brightback’s clients include Freshly, ClickFunnels, Unbounce, SoleSavy, Powtoon and BallerTV, among others.
“During the pandemic, we saw a huge uptick in new customers for subscription businesses around the globe. As the world continues to reopen, a challenge facing many of those businesses is now how to retain and expand those customer relationships,” said Krish Subramanian, CEO and co-founder of Chargebee, in an announcement.
“We are excited to welcome Brightback to the Chargebee team to unlock growth potential and seamlessly offer ways in which to retain current customers while also attracting new ones to grow business,” Subramanian added.
Guy Marion, CEO and founder of Brightback, also commented on the acquisition.
“Brightback’s integration partnership with Chargebee has enabled some of the fastest-growing startups, including Hopin, TouchNote, and ScreenCloud, to quickly launch and evolve high-performance retention flows,” said Marion. “Our companies have similar growth goals and our mission and values are very aligned, so we look forward to accelerating the adoption of customer retention best practices and benchmarks across the industry, while smoothly transitioning into the Chargebee family.”
Details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Chargebee said that Brightback’s executive team will join Chargebee’s leadership team. Other Brightback team members will join Chargebee offices and work remotely around the world.
About Chargebee
Launched in 2011, Chargebee is a subscription management platform that automates revenue operations for more than 3,500 high-growth subscription businesses, including everything from startups to enterprise companies. They help their clients streamline revenue operations including automating subscriptions, billing, invoicing, payments and revenue recognition. They also provide key metrics, reports and business insights. Chargebee’s clients include Freshworks, Calendly, Linux Academy, Fujitsu, Gigwell, Deliverr, Doctify, Livestorm, Drawboard and more.
RevLock acquisition
In October 2021, Chargebee acquired revenue recognition platform RevLock to help the company expand its product offerings. The combination of Chargebee’s and RevLock’s services allows customers to unlock automated revenue recognition as part of their billing processes, minimizing manual processing and helping companies to meet compliance and reporting requirements.
“Our mission at Chargebee is to solve important challenges for our customers and empower subscription-first businesses to grow with confidence. As we continue to build a category leading product for subscription management and billing we see revenue recognition as the natural next step,” said Subramanian in an October 5, 2021 news release. “With Chargebee RevRec, we are committed to offering our customers a best-in-class solution that automates some of the most challenging aspects of the billing process for subscription-based businesses.”
“We are thrilled to join Chargebee and offer RevRec so that modern-day finance leaders will have a one-stop solution to digitally transform recurring invoicing, accounts receivables and financial reporting,” added Craig Kirsch, CEO of RevLock.
Working with early stage startups
In March 2021, Chargebee pledged $5 billion in free processing this week to support early-stage startups. Qualifying companies will get access to Chargebee’s subscription revenue management platform and services at no cost until they have earned $100,000 in revenue, doubling the company’s previous limit through their Launch Program. With this pledge, Chargebee hopes to help 50,000 early stage startups over the next two years process $5 billion in recurring revenue.
Insider Take
On the heels of the RevLock acquisition and a $125 million funding round last April, Chargebee is in growth mode, ready to provide a full range of subscription services to thousands of clients around the world. Chargebee has some strong competitors in the subscription management space, so these key acquisitions help the company get a step ahead. We expect to see more of these kinds of acquisitions in 2022 as companies like Chargebee strengthen their value proposition and other players jockey for position.
