Extend, a startup aimed at helping businesses offer product warranties, revealed on Tuesday that it had raised as much as $260 million in its latest round of fundraising efforts, which were led by SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund 2. In response to the company’s overwhelming success, Nagraj Kashyap, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, stated that both product protection services and extended warranties are experiencing increasing demand.
Currently valued at over $1 billion by Vision Fund 2, Extend enables companies to add buttons to their eCommerce platforms so that customers have the option to further protect their purchases for an extra fee. In addition, Extend will handle all warranty claims, commonly through the use of a customer service chatbot.
According to Extend CEO and co-founder Woodrow Levin, another growing trend that Extend is working effectively to capitalize on is the offer of extended warranties, whereby there is a “buy now, pay later” model.
Founded in 2019, Extend managed to sell over 300,000 protection plans last year and is expected to reach the 3 million mark in 2021. Levin stated that he expects this year’s revenue to skyrocket by over 400%.
