UK fintech startup Ryft has raised $7.3 million in Series A funding to expand its payment-splitting platform into new markets.
Founded by serial entrepreneurs Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie, Ryft provides tools for marketplaces, booking apps, and food delivery services to manage multi-party payments for what the startup calls “commerce 2.0.”
“Commerce 1.0 was simple — you sold a product and got paid,” Sadra Hosseini, the startup’s CEO, told Business Insider. “Now, in commerce 2.0, £100 might need to be split between a driver, a restaurant, and a platform.”
The name Ryft comes from “rift,” as in a split — which Hosseini says reflects the startup’s core product. The platform also handles compliance checks and real-time onboarding.
Ryft makes money by charging fees on transactions processed through its infrastructure. It gives acquiring banks — financial institutions that process credit and debit card payments — and platforms the ability to add their own margin on every transaction. Ryft then gets a portion of that and also white-labels its platform to acquirers, who pay for access and usage.
Ryft, which is based in London and Manchester, recently partnered with Clearhaus, Denmark’s second-largest acquiring bank. It has
The Series A was led by EdenBase, with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, SidebySide, and Ingenii VC, an early backer of Starling Bank. Ryft also brought in US-based Victorum and a GP from PayPal Ventures.
Hosseini said the startup is planning expansion into the EU this quarter and the US in the third quarter.
“We didn’t raise this to survive — we’d already broken even. This round is about scaling up,” Hosseini said. “That means international growth, more hires, and launching omnichannel payments.”
Here’s the 16-page pitch deck Ryft used to land the $7.3 million, or £5.7 million, shared exclusively with Business Insider.
