After spending the summer at the prestigious Stanford dy/dx program, Australian company secures $2.75 million USD in early seed funds from Index Ventures and other top-tier investors; Early customers report seeing 9x ROI, adding $22,000 in ARR per day at peak, and converting customers from $0 to paying up to $499/month; retention matches or exceeds other means of conversion
SYDNEY, Nov. 29, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Upollo, a new kind of company created to bring businesses worldwide more satisfied, paying customers, today announced the global launch of its platform. Upollo helps subscription businesses convert, retain, expand, and understand their users so they can grow faster and build more effective products. The initial offering is designed to take advantage of the over $50 billion in revenue that remains largely untapped by subscription businesses by intelligently converting repeat signups and account sharers into happy paying customers.
Along with the company launch, Upollo also announced $2.75 million in seed funding. Index Ventures led the round, with other top VCs as well as angels from Stripe, Notion, Google, Canva, and Cohere also participating. This makes Upollo one of only a rare few Australian startups to receive backing from tier-one venture firms in the U.S. Funds will be used to aggressively hire across all parts of the business; Upollo plans to double headcount by the end of the year.
"The easiest users to convert are the ones who already love your product, and signing them on can contribute significantly to a company's bottom line," said Mike Volpi, Partner at Index Ventures. "At a time when companies are taking a critical look at their spend, Upollo offers simple customer acquisition and retention tools that provide key business insights, solving a very complex problem with innovative technology."
Built for Conversion and Retention
Upollo operates under the premise that by delivering more paying customers from trials and account sharing, it can supercharge and accelerate product-led growth. For example, 11% of trials come from people who have already done a trial of the product previously, but rather than become a paying subscriber, they seek another trial under false pretenses. If these trial users can be converted, they represent a significant stream of additional revenue. Similarly, up to 45% of users who share their account credentials with friends, family members, or colleagues provide an opportunity to add new paying customers if successfully identified and converted.
Upollo's platform provides real time insights on whether users are account sharing, have already had a trial, or are using false or disposable phone numbers and emails. This feat is achieved by combining hundreds of signals, including billing and IP information. The Upollo platform saves companies from building and maintaining entire teams to attempt to solve this problem and replaces it with a few lines of code.
Additionally, the Upollo platform enables positive interactions with potential customers who may be on the fence about whether to purchase a subscription. For example, if the system detects that someone is attempting to sign up for an additional trial, they will be thanked for being an existing customer and offered a discount if the user signs up for a paid subscription instead of giving them another free trial. In the case of account sharers, the organization, through Upollo, can direct users to upgrade to a team or family plan or get their own account. Such interactions often result in an unexpectedly high rate of account conversion. By guiding people to move forward with a paid account, companies capture additional monthly revenue from happy users that maintain their subscriptions over the long term with very little effort.
Applying intelligence and coupling it with meaningful offers has already led early Upollo customers to see conversion rates of up to 100% on specific campaigns. One customer reported recognizing a 10%+ growth opportunity with just a few minutes of work. They also experienced 5x ROI, adding $18,000 in ARR per day at peak, which has been a huge boost to the company's bottom line. On top of this, the reduced time spent preventing repeated signups went from a full time employee to zero, enabling them to reallocate resources to other priorities– all while experiencing the conversion of customers from paying $0 to being happy paying customers. Cases like this are not unique. Across its portfolio, Upollo has demonstrated the ability to increase ARR by a significant percentage, and customer retention is on par– if not better than– that of users who convert via other means, showing Upollo's unique value to B2C and B2B companies.
"Most organizations don't realize how much revenue and how many loyal customers they miss out on by not converting account sharers and people who repeatedly trial," said Cayden Meyer, founder and CEO of Upollo. "The reality is these are users who love your product, use your product, and understand the value of your product so they just need a slight nudge to get on the right path. That's where Upollo comes in."
Upollo helps businesses identify people ripe for conversion by assessing more than 400 signals. Its insights empower businesses to communicate in ways that make sense for a specific moment in time and serve the potential customer.
Putting Privacy and Security First
Although Upollo's software assesses a high volume of signals, the platform was built to put privacy at the forefront. From the very first line of code written by the team, everything was designed to be siloed to treat customer data with the respect it deserves. The company doesn't share or sell user data, and it encrypts data in transit and at rest. Upollo also has a publicly available GDPR compliant data protection agreement.
Upollo was started by Cayden Meyer, a veteran executive who developed products used by more than half a billion people every month. Meyer is best known for co-founding Google Keep and his work building Canva's teams and enterprise businesses from the ground up. He is joined at Upollo by team members who have built products at Google, Atlassian, and Uber, where they've fought everything from nation states, to fake drivers and cartels. This blend of talent and experience is now being applied to solve the challenges of repeated signups and account sharing, passing knowledge on to companies of all sizes.
Get Started in Minutes
Onboarding to Upollo is remarkably simple. Companies can drop in the Upollo solution without having to build anything themselves. Getting started is as simple as connecting with their existing billing platform, adding three lines of code to your Android, iOS, or web app, or plugging Upollo into Segment.
Upollo is free to get started. Customers can also opt for a paid tier in which pricing is based on outcomes, rather than usage.
About Upollo
Upollo helps businesses convert, retain, expand, and understand their users through timely, friendly interactions that result in happy paying subscribers. Its platform reveals the insights that help companies grow efficiently and capitalize on all opportunities. Based in Sydney, Australia, Upollo is backed by Index Ventures. Learn more at upollo.ai.
Media Contact
Amber Moore, Moore Communications, 1 5039439381, [email protected]
SOURCE Upollo
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