CellPoint raises £25.4m from Toscafund and Penta Capital to scale Zenith platform
This article covers CellPoint, a fintech startup, which has raised £25.4m in growth funding from Toscafund's private equity affiliate Penta Capital, appointed a new leadership team and launched Zenith, an AI decisioning platform for airline and hospitality payments. The development aims to turn payments into a measurable commercial lever for airlines and hotels by improving authorisation, routing and recovery and to support international scaling and hiring across product, data and AI.
CellPoint has raised £25.4m in a growth funding round from Toscafund, managed by its private equity affiliate Penta Capital, as it appoints a new leadership team and launches Zenith, an AI decisioning platform for airline and hospitality payments. The investment and leadership changes are aimed at turning payments into a measurable commercial lever for airlines and hotels.
Why it matters
Payments are a material line on airline and hotel profit and loss statements, and many operators still treat them as a technical back-office function rather than a source of margin improvement. CellPoint’s funding and new leadership signal investor confidence in applying AI to what are effectively commercial decisions across authorisation, routing and recovery. The capital will also support hiring 50 people across product, data, AI, sales and partnerships and a strengthened executive team to scale the product internationally.
Inside the product
Zenith is described as an AI decisioning layer that sits above any payment orchestrator — whether CellPoint’s own or a third party’s. It converts payment data into automated commercial actions: changing routing, adjusting acceptance strategies, recovering lost revenue and providing finance teams with near real-time visibility into payment performance. A key selling point is that adopters need not replace their existing payment stack to use Zenith, which is positioned as an add-on decisioning tier rather than a full-stack replacement.
CellPoint has previously integrated with partners such as PayPal, showing how its platform can link with widely used wallets and payment rails. The company also points to product work launched in recent years, including its One Source Orchestration offering, as part of a broader effort to turn payments into a commercial advantage for travel merchants.
Who are the investors?
The round is provided by Toscafund and managed by its private equity affiliate Penta Capital. As part of the investment, Penta has appointed Kevin Murphy as Group CEO and Michael Kelly as Chairman and backed plans to accelerate the Zenith build-out in CellPoint’s core markets of airlines and hospitality across Europe, the Americas and Asia. The funding will also support the creation of around 50 roles in product, data, AI, sales and partnerships.
In the announcement, Steven Scott, Managing Partner at Penta Capital, added:
We backed the team and the plan. Kevin and Michael have the experience to transform CellPoint and the discipline to turn AI into measurable financial results for airlines and hotels. Zenith is a genuinely differentiated position in a category that matters. Our £25.4m (US$34m) reflects our confidence in that outcome.
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Founder perspective
The company has framed the leadership changes and product launch as a commercial reset rather than a purely technical upgrade. Patrick Uckermark joins as Chief Product and Technology Officer to lead the AI and data roadmap alongside the new executive team.
In the announcement, Kevin Murphy, Group CEO at CellPoint, said:
Payments are one of the largest controllable cost and revenue lines in an airline or hotel P&L, and one of the least well managed. In the announcement, Kevin Murphy, Group CEO at CellPoint, said: Our job is to change that. Zenith uses AI to raise approval rates, cut cost of payments, recover lost revenue and give CFOs a live view of what their payment stack is actually doing. The £25.4m ($34m) investment lets us build it at pace. In the announcement, Kevin Murphy, Group CEO at CellPoint, said: CellPoint has the data, the customers and the technology to lead this category, we have been given a clear mandate : focus the company, invest in AI, and deliver measurable financial impact for our airline and hospitality customers. Zenith is how we do it.
The bigger picture
The deal sits at the intersection of two trends: growing interest in applying AI to operational revenue levers, and consolidation in payments orchestration for travel merchants. Airlines and hotels are under renewed pressure to protect margins while improving customer payment experiences, and vendors that promise measurable uplift in approval rates or recovered revenue attract attention from both strategic partners and financial investors.
CellPoint’s move follows a string of product and partnership announcements — including a PayPal integration and regional expansion efforts — that position the company as an integrator between merchants, wallets and payment processors. For fintech investors and airline/hospitality finance teams alike, the question will be whether an AI decisioning layer can deliver consistent, transparent improvements across diverse merchant architectures.
This funding and leadership change underscores broader momentum among European fintech startups using AI to tackle vertical, revenue-focused problems. If Zenith can demonstrate repeatable outcomes in airlines and hospitality, it will add to the evidence that targeted AI applications in payments can attract growth capital and operational adoption across the region.
They've invested in CellPoint
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| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
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 Toscafund( ) Toscafund Asset Management LLP is a specialist investment manager based in Londo... London  | FintechGeneralist | |||
 Penta Capital( ) Penta Capital is an independently owned Private Equity firm focused on the mid-m... London | FintechGeneralist | |||
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