ApexEdge raises $4M seed round from Florida Funders, other investors

The Miami-based startup’s bill-negotiation solution will soon be available to 30 million users of Intuit’s Mint

ApexEdge created a white-label subscription management platform built for banks, credit unions and financial technology companies that want to help their customers save money on their monthly bills and simplify their financial lives.

This week, the Miami-based startup confirmed it raised a $4 million seed round from Florida Funders, Florida Institute and existing investors to scale its solutions through very large enterprises.

Founded in 2018, ApexEdge works with institutions including NerdWallet,  community banks, and most recently MetLife, Intuit and a top 3 US bank on the runway to offer subscription management solutions. One of those is Billshark, a bill negotiator product that helps their customers effortlessly lower their wireless, internet, home security or other home service bills. Another solution makes it super simple to cancel a subscription service – no searching for the 800 number and endlessly waiting on hold. By offering these, ApexEdge helps these institutions increase customer engagement, overall customer satisfaction, and revenue. 

Steven McKean, CEO of ApexEdge

The funding will be used to scale integrations of large enterprises such as Metlife, Intuit and the top bank, said ApexEdge co-founder and CEO Steven McKean. This scaling up comes as the subscription economy shows no signs of slowing down.

“We couldn’t think of a better time than now to focus our efforts on helping people live healthier financial lives and enabling financial institutions to deepen their customer relationships – it’s a win-win for everyone,” said McKean, a longtime Miamian and serial entrepreneur who grew Acceller into an Inc 500 company and sold it to Bridgevine in 2014.

The ApexEdge investment is part of Florida Funders’ Fund 2. The Tampa-based Florida Funders, a hybrid of a venture capital fund and an angel investor network, is the most-active VC in the Southeast region according to Pitchbook and has been growing its presence in Miami. Other recent South Florida investments include Lula, HealthSnap,  Cast AI,  Marco Financial and NOCAP Sports.

“Canceling subscriptions and reducing bills is inconvenient and time-consuming for everyone. ApexEdge solves a very important problem by offering enterprise solutions that can positively impact Americans’ overall financial well-being. Florida Funders is proud to support ApexEdge as we see the adoption of its services across industries helping its customers save money and reduce unnecessary stress,” said Florida Funders Managing Partner Tom Wallace, in a statement.

The funding announcement comes on the heels of the Intuit partnership news that was also announced this week:  Intuit’s Mint is partnering with ApexEdge’s Billshark to offer Mint’s 30 million users an easy way to negotiate bill and subscription costs.

The funding also follows a track record of strong growth. McKean said: “Over the past couple of years, our merchant catalog has expanded by 10X. We are nearing serving half a million customers and we have cumulatively saved them $50 to $60 million.”

Looking ahead, McKean said, “we can see that by the time we stand up all three partners, our functionality will be available to about 50% of the country.”

ApexEdge, which operates out of Miami and Boston, will be a team of 52 next week, when 12 more people will be joining the team. In Miami, where product and engineering work is done, the team of 12 includes 10 software developers, and is actively hiring more engineers.

“We know what we need to do — execute and execute at scale. We’re hyper-focused on that,” said McKean. “We’ve done all the hard work to build a platform and land customers and now we have to just go do it.”

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Nancy Dahlberg