Ryft, a PSD2 and FCA-approved decentralised payments innovator, announced today a successful £5.7 million Series A round to fund the development of technology that will empower acquiring banks, like Clearhaus, to compete with Stripe Connect, Adyen, and similar payment providers in the market. The round, which takes total investments in Ryft to £7.4 million, was led by EdenBase, with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, Sidebyside, and Ingenii VC. The fundraising round was also joined by strategic angel investors, including executives at PayPal.  

Ryft was founded by entrepreneurs Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie, whose digital platform, Butlr, was acquired by OrderPay in 2021. While building Butlr, the co-founders experienced highly limited options for compliant payment solutions that support marketplace and platform transaction flows. Businesses operating within these models need to be able to capture, split, hold and process payments for various parties, often based on specific conditions. Existing third-party payment facilitators are costly, complex and unsupportive; businesses have the option to build their own compliant infrastructure from scratch, but the incredibly high costs and extensive time requirements present significant barriers. 
 

Ryft is challenging this by helping businesses efficiently process, manage and monetise payments at scale in a secure and compliant way. Over 1,500 businesses have already implemented Ryft to enable rapid growth without regulatory complications, and customers that have switched from Stripe report remarkable cost savings of up to 62% in payment fees.  

Now, the entrepreneurs are aiming to transform a $20 trillion acquiring ecosystem. Ryft gives acquiring banks the technology needed to automatically split payments and process payouts at a much lower cost than solutions offered by Stripe Connect or Adyen. It also gives marketplaces and platforms the ability to hold funds until specific conditions are met through a delayed payments feature, facilitated by an escrow license. This enables acquiring banks to remain competitive in the modern commerce landscape by efficiently fulfilling the payment needs of marketplaces and digital platforms. 

Sadra Hosseini, CEO and Co-founder of Ryft, said: “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.” 

Since its £1.2 million Seed funding in 2022, Ryft has secured its FCA license, partnered with American Express and Visa, and has become a Mastercard Network Enablement Partner. Ryft also integrated with multiple acquirers to achieve payments orchestration that delivers 99.9% uptime. Impressively, Ryft became profitable just two and a half years after launch and has consistently tripled its gross merchandise value year-over-year. The team is looking to repeat this robust revenue growth over the next 18 months while also scaling headcount. 

In addition to their strategic focus on enabling acquirers, Sadra and Alex will use the latest funding to enhance the modularity of Ryft. They aim to double down on the development of innovative and efficient payment solutions while accelerating Ryft’s international expansion into new markets.  

Rasmus Ny Sejer, Compliance Officer and MLRO at leading acquirer Clearhaus, commented: “Ryft is a valued partner with a commitment to compliance, collaboration and outstanding technical support that enables our marketplace merchants to be successful. This has created a strong foundation for our mutual long-term growth.” 

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.” 

Fred Ursell, Investment Director at Pembroke VCT, said: “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.” 

Jason Druker, Chief Commercial Officer at SFC Capital, said: “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.”