UK-based decentralized payments platform Ryft has successfully raised £5.7 million in Series A funding to empower acquiring banks to compete with industry leaders Stripe Connect and Adyen.
This funding round brings Ryft’s total investments to £7.4 million and was led by EdenBase, with contributions from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, Sidebyside, and Ingenii VC.
Founded by Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie, who previously developed and sold a mobile ordering marketplace app for pubs and bars, Ryft was created to address a gap in the market for microtransactions and rapid payouts.
The platform enables businesses to efficiently process, manage, and monetize payments securely and in compliance. More than 1,500 businesses have adopted Ryft, with clients reporting cost savings of up to 62% on payment fees after switching from Stripe.
Ryft’s technology allows acquiring banks to automatically split payments and process payouts at significantly lower costs compared to Stripe Connect or Adyen. It also offers marketplaces and platforms the capability to hold funds until specific conditions are met, thanks to a delayed payments feature supported by an escrow license. This functionality positions acquiring banks to effectively meet the payment demands of modern marketplaces and digital platforms.
CEO Sadra Hosseini stated, “Acquiring banks and most businesses were designed 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 multiple parties, financial institutions are struggling to deliver payment operations that align with evolving customer needs.
“As a result, they find it challenging to compete with established players like Stripe Connect and Adyen, whose solutions dominate the payments ecosystem despite high fees, complicated integrations, inadequate support, and lengthy payment wait times. At Ryft, we possess the technology that enables acquiring banks to overcome these challenges, and we are actively pursuing several strategic partnerships to address issues within the payments industry.”