Dileepan Siva, founder of Upscribe and CEO, saw the retail industry shift to subscription ecommerce for physical goods over the past decade and decided to join the fray in 2019.Sivas' fourth startup experience, and his first as a founder, is the Los Angeles-based company that develops subscription software for direct to consumer e-commerce merchants. To pursue two macro trends, Sivas closed a $4million seed round. He wanted to buy physical products on a regular basis and explore new industries that offer subscriptions like fashion and car companies.Upscribes technology is used by merchants to increase subscriber growth and reduce churn. It also allows customers to personalize their subscription experience with options like skip shipments, changing order frequency, and swapping products. Brands may also be able to feature products for upsell purposes during the subscriber's lifecycle, including checkout and post-purchase.Upscribe offers APIs that merchants can use to integrate tools such as Klaviyo and Segment. This is a new subscription option for checkouts.Uncork Capital was the seed round leader and was joined by Leaders Fund and The House Fund, Roach Capitals Fahd Ananta, Shippo CEO Laura Behrens Wu.In a written statement, Jeff Clavier, founder of Uncork Capital and managing partner, stated that the D2C subscription market is growing rapidly and subscription-first brands need to scale and grow their businesses. Our experience in the ecommerce industry has been extensive. We worked with D2C companies and brands that solve common industry problems. Upscribes merchant-centric approach raised standards for subscription services. It addressed friction in customer experiences, enabling merchants and subscribers to engage and grow recurring revenue.Siva started the company as a bootstrapper, but Upscribe asked him to seek venture capital. Upscribe wanted to make Upscribe more merchant-centric, so he needed to scale with a larger team. He said that the real gems lie in the data layer, and how to make the experience extraordinary.Siva stated that the company is experiencing a 43% increase in quarterly sales and is nearing profitability. Siva also said that a large portion of its business is derived from referrals. It has already worked with customers such as Four Sigmatic, Athletic Greens, and True Botanicals across multiple verticals including food and drink, home care, beauty, cosmetics, and health and wellness.He said that the new funding will be used for the next wave brands that are expected to grow. Siva says the DTC subscription market will grow as it is expected to reach $478billion by 2025. 75% of these brands will offer subscriptions within the next two-years. The majority of funding will go to hiring more people, particularly in product, customer success, and go-to market functions.Although there is a lot of competition in this space, most are focused on processing transactions. Siva stated that Upscribes approach to customer relationships. Subscription services are the best way to convert one-time customers into loyal customers as it reduces the cost of acquiring customers.He said that it is all about customer relationships and ongoing engagement between subscribers and merchants. It is a new world. The first wave could participate in the Facebook game, advertising via social media at a low scale and with very low acquisition. This is no longer true.
