Up-leveling Customer Experience with Our $260M Series C

A couple of weeks ago, we announced our Series C Financing: a $260M round of funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2* at a $1.6B+ valuation. This week we're excited to announce that Amex Ventures (American Express) also joined in the round alongside Meritech Capital Partners, PayPal Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, Nationwide, Tomales Bay Capital, Launchpad Capital, 10X Capital, and 40 North. Take a look at our full press release here. 

It's no secret - customer experience can make or break your business. How a customer feels when they get your order confirmation and tracking information, receive your package, and call your customer support line all contribute to the perception and success of your brand.

Customer experience is continually iterated on as commerce continues to mature, and the top merchants constantly reinvent what great customer experiences look like.

Merchants win with value-add services

The top 1% of retailers dominate by delivering best-in-class customer experiences and value-add services. They offer contextually relevant product recommendations, streamlined checkout, same-day delivery, product protection, and more. These experiences and services build familiarity and customer loyalty by delighting customers throughout their purchase journey. 

Great experiences turn customers into champions

Whether you're an OEM trying to convert a new customer, or an omnichannel retailer working to drive repeat purchases, you need to invest in long-term customer loyalty. Extend's modern and digitally native product protection turns a potentially negative experience into a positive one by giving customers an easy way to fix a broken or defective product.

Historically, most merchants did not have the ability to offer extended warranties and protection plans because the legacy extended warranty industry only served the largest merchants. Extend is disintermediating the legacy extended warranty industry by offering a modern, easy to integrate, and customer-focused solution consumers and merchants both love. Extend enables merchants to build stronger long-term customer relationships. With product protection, merchants take control of their customers’ post-purchase experience, unlock the opportunity to increase brand loyalty, open new revenue channels, and create lasting customer relationships.

"With consumers increasingly coveting customized products and services, Extend's personalized warranties represent the future of product protection. Their customer-first approach, including 24/7 AI-powered technology support, combined with a streamlined API solution for integrations, makes it easy for merchants and customers. We're excited to help fuel the growth of Extend and support their ambition of providing a smarter and more modern way for consumers to protect the products they love." - Lindsay Fitzgerald, Managing Director of Amex Ventures

Product protection built for customers & merchants

From day one, the team at Extend has been focused on delivering an up-leveled customer experience from start to finish. Our digitally native and elegant product offering was designed to delight customers with transparent coverage details, and an expedited claims process. Kaley, our customer service chatbot who is available 24/7, is driven by machine learning and adjudicates 98% of claims in 60 seconds or less. This means no more saving receipts, being put on hold for hours, or waiting weeks for the ultimate resolution of your claim.

Extend also gives customers greater peace of mind and confidence when making purchase decisions, which has resulted in a double-digit increase in overall purchase conversion rates after integrating with Extend. 

"Our customers are active and passionate about their gear. Being able to offer warranties through Extend means they can ride, ski, or get after it outdoors all day long knowing their gear is fully protected from anything thrown its way. For our customers, their gear is truly an investment, and Extend helps them protect that investment. Their flawless end-to-end customer experience and ability to offer every person peace of mind while enjoying what they love is exactly why we're partnered with Extend. With our wide range of products and Extend's machine learning driven-technology, we are able to optimize all of our offerings and ensure a seamless experience for users." - Todd Anderson, Director of Bike and Power Sport Gearheads, at Backcountry

We are energized to continue to innovate

When we started Extend, we set out to redefine a legacy industry that has failed to modernize and has delivered a sub-optimal customer experience. 

With our new funding, we will continue to invest in our people, technology, and overall growth.  

Our efforts are focused on three key areas:  

1) Distribution - Before Extend, only the top 1% of merchants could benefit from offering extended warranties and protection plans. Extend's easy to integrate API-first solution allows merchants of all sizes to generate incremental revenue and give their customers greater peace of mind when making purchase decisions.

• Extend's solution can be up and running in a matter of days. One of our merchants, NewAir, started offering product protection in less than five days. 
  

2) Customer Experience - Extend eliminates the 'gotchas' associated with legacy protection plan programs by providing consumers with a modern, digitally native experience.

• Extend's claims experience garners a 90.65 CSAT score! We're not stopping there - we are expanding our product suite and constantly launching and testing additional features and functionality.
  

3) Data and Analytics - Extend is a technology-first company that invests heavily in data and machine learning to analyze its rich datasets. Our analytics systems dynamically optimize merchant offers based on consumer engagement.

• Our optimization engine increases warranty sales by 28% and attach rate by 57% on average. 

This is just the beginning for our 28-month-old company. Extend is just scratching the surface of what is possible, and we're excited and committed to continue to build alongside our merchant partners and customers. 

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*As of the date of the Series C, June 29, 2021, blog post, SoftBank Group Corp. has made capital contributions to allow investments by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 ("SVF 2") in certain portfolio companies. The information included herein is made for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy limited partnership interests in any fund, including SVF 2. SVF 2 has yet to have an external close, and any potential third-party investors shall receive additional information related to any SVF 2 investments prior to closing.