UK fintech startup Ryft has successfully raised £5.7m in a Series A funding round to help it better compete against the likes of Stripe Connect, Adyen and similar payment providers.
This latest funding round means that Ryft has raised £7.4m in total, with the latest support coming from EdenBase, with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT and more.
Ryft seeks to simplify the payment infrastructure process through decentralised methods to assist businesses operating complex payment processing systems, helping them avoid high costs and compliance issues.
The Manchester-based firm was founded in 2021 by Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackeznie, integrating its payment processing solutions to more than 1,500 businesses to help them scale, avoid regulatory burdens and save on infrastructure costs.
Ryft has highlighted that when customers switch from the Stripe Connect platform to the Ryft platform, it has helped them save up to 62% on payment fees.
“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,” said Hosseini.
“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.”
After securing clearance from the Financial Conduct Authority and also being PSD2 certified, Ryft is now seeking to “transform” the acquiring industry by helping banks integrate the technology needed for more payment functions such as split payments and process payouts at low costs.
Having already worked with the likes of American Express and Visa, while also becoming a Mastercard Network Enablement Partner, Ryft is looking to use the recent funding to further innovate its payment solutions.
Eric Van der Kleij, General Partner at EdenBase, said: “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.”
