Black-Owned Warranty Disrupter Upsie, Raises Over $8.5 Million in Funding

How many times have you been charged for a warranty and felt a certain way about the outrageous additional pricing attached to it? Black-owned startup Upsie, based out of Minneapolis, aims to change that. Upsie’s goal is to disrupt the $40 billion annual warranty market by providing affordable, reliable warranties for all of the electronic devices in your life and they’ve just received an additional $5 million in funding to execute.

Previously, the team raised $3.5 million. Currently, their total raise is $8.5 million in funding. The new round was led by Silicon Valley firm, True Ventures with participation from Matchstick Ventures, Syndicate Fund, M25, an angel investor, and former General Mills executive leader Marc Belton. This is a company uniquely placed outside of Silicon Valley, which makes it all the more interesting to its investors. 

“Great companies are being built everywhere,” said Puneet Agarwal, a partner at True Ventures in a recent TechCrunch article. “More and more of the companies we invest in are outside of the Valley or are building teams outside of the Valley and we encourage it. It can be a tremendous competitive advantage both from a talent and cost perspective. We have had great success investing in places like Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, even recently in Africa, and now in Minnesota with Upsie.”

So how does it work? You buy a warranty that is backed by an A-rated insurance carrier and validate it by entering information about the device. The company then stores the warranty info on their servers making it super easy for you to make a claim. For plans including Accidental Damage, coverage begins on Day 31 after the warranty purchase date. For plans that don’t include Accidental Damage, coverage begins when the manufacturer warranty is complete.

When compared to traditional service providers, Upsie is allowing consumers to save hundreds of dollars on their warranty purchases. They can afford to do this because Upsie is direct-to-consumer, thus they are avoiding the high-price inflation tacked on by traditional retailers.

Since Upsie’s initial beta launch in 2016, the company has seen a 300% increase in growth year-over-year. Consumers can currently purchase in the U.S., and the company’s goal is to expand across additional territories.

With the new infusion of capital, the company plans to expand and bring on new hires. “The new funds will be used to grow our engineering and growth teams,” founder Clarence Bethea told Black Enterprise in a statement. “We will also use the funds to increase our brand presence nationally.”

Sequoia Blodgett

Sequoia Blodgett is a Reporter for Black Enterprise. She is also the founder of Commas, a virtual entrepreneurship resource center that provides everything you need to know about product development, marketing, publicity, and fundraising, to make your entrepreneurial journey a lot less stressful.