Manchester Fintech Ryft Secures £20M Series B to Scale Global Payment Infrastructure

Manchester-based Ryft has secured £20 million in Series B funding to scale its multi-party payment infrastructure across international markets. This capital injection, led by Gresham House Ventures, highlights the increasing demand for specialized fintech solutions capable of managing the complex transaction flows and regulatory requirements inherent in modern marketplace and platform business models.

What was announced

Ryft has closed a £20 million Series B investment round led by Gresham House Ventures, with further participation from existing backers Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital. The funding follows a period of significant commercial momentum for the firm, which has tripled its processing volume over the last 12 months. The platform currently serves more than 6,500 businesses, including high-profile clients such as Epos Now, Chaiwalla, the Disasters Emergency Committee, Daytrip, and Sprive.

The new capital is designated to support Ryft’s expansion into Europe and the United States, while also accelerating product development as the company moves further into the upmarket segment. As a key part of its European strategy, Ryft has submitted an application for a full EU license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Obtaining this license will allow the company to passport its financial services across the European Economic Area, facilitating cross-border operations for its clients.

Founded in 2021, Ryft provides a unified integration for marketplaces, platforms, and multi-location businesses. Its technology is built to handle seller onboarding and intricate transaction requirements, including automated split payments, recurring billing, and cross-border payouts. By automating these processes, the company enables merchants to capture additional revenue from transactions while offloading the technical and regulatory burden of multi-party payment settlement. The firm has already established partnerships with major global networks including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Global Payments, and Nuvei.

"Modern commerce runs on platforms, from marketplaces and franchises, to creators, and, in time, AI agents, but the payments foundation beneath it was built for a two-party world that no longer exists. Ryft is the rare UK-built, FCA-regulated fintech designed for multi-party payments from the ground up, and its best customers are compounding volumes over 100% a year on the platform."

Rohit Mathur, Partner at Gresham House Ventures.

The companies involved

Ryft is a Manchester-based payments specialist founded by Sadra Hosseini, Alex Mackenzie, and Richard Kirby. The company has emerged as a prominent player in the North West’s fintech ecosystem, an area previously championed by local leadership for its potential to produce global technology leaders. Ryft operates as an FCA-regulated entity, positioning itself as a domestic alternative to large incumbent payment processors by focusing specifically on the "split payment" architecture required by modern digital platforms.

Gresham House Ventures, the lead investor in this round, focuses on providing growth capital to scale-up businesses across the UK. Pembroke VCT is a venture capital trust that has now supported Ryft through three separate funding rounds, marking this Series B as its largest investment in the company to date. Ingenii Capital also joined the round as an existing investor. These firms are backing a shift toward sovereign payments infrastructure, reflecting a broader interest among European policymakers and investors in maintaining regional control over the technical rails that underpin modern commerce and financial data.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely followed Ryft’s technical evolution and its place within the broader payments landscape. In 2025, the company expanded its reach beyond digital-only transactions, as detailed in Ryft Unveils Omnichannel Payment Platform to Unify Online and in-person Transactions. This move was a clear indicator of the company's intent to provide a unified experience for businesses operating across multiple channels.

The company’s investors have also remained active in the high-growth technology sector. Pembroke VCT recently led a significant round for an AI-driven services firm, which we covered in Pembroke Leads Funding Round Into Kaizan of up to £2.5m to Help Services Firms Grow Every Client with AI. Furthermore, Ryft’s expansion comes amid a wider trend of infrastructure-level fintech investment, similar to the activity seen in Stoa Raises $2.4M to Disrupt Cash Management with Upfront Perks for Consumers and SMEs and the scaling of SMB platforms reported in Helcim Secures $53M Series C Funding to Scale SMB Payment Platform Across North America.

What this means

This Series B round signals a definitive shift in the payments industry away from simple merchant-to-consumer transactions toward complex, multi-party ecosystems. As the "platformization" of the economy continues, legacy payment providers are under increasing pressure to modernize their infrastructure or risk losing market share to ground-up builds like Ryft. The technical and regulatory difficulty of splitting payments is a significant barrier to entry, and Ryft’s growth suggests that specialized infrastructure is now a requirement rather than a luxury for marketplaces. Furthermore, the emphasis on "national economic sovereignty" indicates that the ownership of payment rails is becoming a geopolitical and strategic priority for the UK and Europe.