Subscription billing startup Skio has been acquired by competitor Recharge for $105 million in cash, the companies announced on April 30, 2026. The deal is notable for its return on investment: Skio had raised only $8 million from investors over its lifetime.
Skio and Recharge both build products that handle subscription payments for consumer brands. At the time of the sale, Skio was generating $32 million in annual recurring revenue and had processed $4 billion in payments.
The official press release did not disclose financial terms, but Kennan Frost — the startup’s solo founder and former CEO — shared the figures publicly on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram. His posts were reposted by investors Y Combinator and Nicolas Wittenborn, founder of VC firm Adjacent. Frost’s YC advisor, Gustaf Alströmer, also confirmed the terms on X.
Frost founded Skio in 2020 after leaving his engineering job at Pinterest following a panic attack, with COVID shutting down the broader economy shortly after. He entered Y Combinator’s S20 batch, pivoted his idea twice during the program, and eventually landed on the subscription payments concept. Within three years, he brought the company to $10 million ARR and profitability before stepping back from the CEO role approximately two years before the acquisition.
Aidan Thibodeaux, who joined as Skio’s first COO, took over as CEO and described a capital-efficient operating approach: no spending on marketing, advertising, or a dedicated sales team. Thibodeaux and founding CTO Andrew Chen handled all sales calls themselves, focusing resources entirely on product development.
The acquisition suggests that a lean operational model and narrow product focus can generate a substantial exit even with limited outside funding. Frost has since founded a new startup, Icon, which offers a product called AdMaker for generating and tracking ad campaigns.
Source: TechCrunch