UK-based Ryft raises €6.6M to help banks and businesses with lower-cost payment solutions

London-based Ryft, a payment platform focused on automating payment flows for marketplaces and digital platforms, announced a £5.7M (nearly €6.62M) Series A funding round. The investment brings the company’s total funding to £7.4M (nearly €8.60M).

The round was led by EdenBase, with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, Sidebyside, and Ingenii VC. Strategic angel investors, including executives at PayPal, also took part.

Fred Ursell, Investment Director at Pembroke VCT, says, “We backed Ryft because we saw a team with deep payments expertise, the ambition to challenge incumbents, and the execution to make it happen. Their rapid growth, capital efficiency, and ability to turn payments from a cost centre into a profit driver stood out.”

“With a modern platform and strong regulatory positioning in an industry with attractive, long-term fundamental growth drivers, Ryft is well-positioned to scale. We’re excited to support Sadra, Alex, Richard, and the team on their journey.”

Helping businesses unlock their platform’s revenue stream

Ryft was founded by Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie after their previous venture, Butlr, was acquired by OrderPay in 2021. While running Butlr, they saw that existing payment tools did not meet the needs of marketplaces and platforms, which often require payments to be split, held, and processed for different parties based on specific rules. Available third-party solutions were expensive and hard to use, and building custom systems was time-consuming and costly.

Ryft addresses this by offering a platform that helps businesses manage payments at scale while staying within regulatory guidelines. The company equips acquiring banks with tools to split payments and handle payouts at a lower cost than other providers.

It also enables platforms to hold funds until certain conditions are met, using a delayed payments feature backed by an escrow license. This allows acquiring banks to meet the payment needs of digital platforms and marketplaces.

Sadra Hosseini, CEO and co-founder of Ryft, says, “Acquiring banks and most businesses were built for the one-to-one transactions of Commerce 1.0. However, in the era of Commerce 2.0, where transactions within a single marketplace involve numerous parties, financial institutions are struggling to deliver payment operations that meet the evolving needs of their customers. As a result, they’re unable to compete with the likes of Stripe Connect and Adyen whose solutions currently dominate the payments ecosystem despite high fees, complicated integrations, poor support, and prolonged payment wait times.”

“At Ryft, we have the technology that allows acquiring banks to overcome these hurdles and we’re actively exploring several strategic partnerships to solve this issue in the payments industry.”

The company reports that over 1,500 businesses are using Ryft, with some reporting up to 62 per cent savings in payment fees after switching from Stripe.

Capital utilisation

Ryft will use the proceeds to build technology that helps acquiring banks, including Clearhaus, compete with payment providers such as Stripe Connect and Adyen. 

Founders Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie plan to improve Ryft’s modular product structure, introduce new payment features and expand into international markets. Their efforts remain centred on providing acquiring banks with tools to manage payments efficiently.

Eric Van der Kleij, General Partner at EdenBase, says, “Sadra and Alex are tried and tested entrepreneurs with first-hand experience of the headaches that finding a payment partner brings. As a result, they have created a unique solution that allows business owners to focus on growth, secure in the knowledge that their payments are being handled in a compliant, quick and cost-effective way.”

“The renewed focus on growing the acquirer side of the business demonstrates their commitment to promoting efficiency and transparency in the marketplace and platform payments space, aligning with the modern demands of Commerce 2.0.”

Growth and development

Since raising £1.2M (nearly €1.39M) in Seed funding in 2022, Ryft has obtained an FCA license, formed partnerships with American Express and Visa, and joined the Mastercard Network Enablement Program. 

The company has also integrated with several acquiring banks to support a payments system that operates with 99.9 per cent uptime. 

Ryft reached profitability two and a half years after launch and has been growing its gross merchandise value at a rate of three times each year. The company plans to continue this revenue growth and expand its team over the next 18 months.

Speaking on the latest deal, Jason Druker, Chief Commercial Officer at SFC Capital, says, “Ryft is solving a critical challenge in the payments space with a highly scalable solution. We continue to be impressed by the team’s execution and vision, and we’re excited to keep supporting them as they scale. This round marks another step in their journey, and we look forward to seeing their impact grow.”