Subscription Fintech Skio Acquired by Competitor Recharge for $105 Million in Cash

Subscription payments startup Skio has been acquired by competitor Recharge in a $105 million all-cash deal, the companies announced on Thursday, April 30, 2026. Skio founder and former CEO Kennan Frost posted on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram that the company received $105 million in cash after raising $8 million from investors.

TechCrunch reported that Skio investors Y Combinator and Nicolas Wittenborn, founder of VC firm Adjacent, reposted Frost's announcements about the deal.

At the time of the sale, Skio was at $32 million in annual recurring revenue and had processed $4 billion in payments, according to Frost. In three years, Skio reached $10 million in ARR and became profitable, Frost stated. Gustaf Alströmer, the YC advisor for Skio, confirmed on X that Skio sold for $105 million in cash.

Frost, a self-described college dropout, solo-founded Skio in 2020 after a panic attack that caused him to leave his job as an engineer at Pinterest. COVID shut the world down two weeks after Frost left Pinterest, he noted. Skio is a 2020 Y Combinator alum.

Frost applied to Y Combinator S20 with one idea, pivoted during the batch, and pivoted again, he said. Frost stated that he completely failed during the Y Combinator S20 batch until pivoting to the subscription idea. Alströmer described on X how Frost struggled during his time at the accelerator but never gave up, posting: 'Being a founder is hard.

Being a solo founder is much harder. Kennan did YC in S20 with Skio. Never gave up. The last pivot worked. Frost had not been running Skio for about two years as of April 30, 2026, according to Aidan Thibodeaux, the current CEO of Skio.

Thibodeaux began as Skio’s first COO. In a LinkedIn post, Thibodeaux wrote that when he took over, Skio spent no money on marketing, ads, or a sales team and focused spending exclusively on building the product. Thibodeaux and Andrew Chen, the founding CTO of Skio, made every sales call themselves, Thibodeaux stated.

Both Skio and Recharge make products that handle subscription payments for brands. TechCrunch reported that Frost is now working on another startup called Icon, which offers a product called AdMaker for generating ads and tracking ad campaigns. TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is scheduled for October 13-15, 2026, in San Francisco, CA.

The event will gather 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders for three days of 250+ tactical sessions. Registration for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 saves up to $410. The StrictlyVC event kicks off the year in San Francisco, CA, on April 30, 2026.

Julie Bort is the Startups/Venture Desk editor for TechCrunch. The article was published on April 30, 2026.