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.
The Series A was led by EdenBase, with participation from GPOS Investments, British Business Bank, Pembroke VCT, SidebySide, and Ingenii VC. Ryft also brought in US-based Victorum and executives from PayPal.
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.
