Manchester-based Ryft raises £20m led by Gresham House Ventures and Pembroke VCT
This article covers Ryft, a fintech startup, which has raised £20m in a growth funding round led by Gresham House Ventures with participation from Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, move upmarket towards enterprise customers and expand across Europe and the US, supporting marketplaces, point-of-sale partners and other businesses that need multi-party payments infrastructure.
Ryft, a fintech startup, has raised £20m in a growth funding round led by Gresham House Ventures, with participation from existing backers Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, push upmarket toward enterprise customers and expand across Europe and the US — moves that matter as payments infrastructure shifts to support multi-party commerce.
Why it matters
Payments remain dominated by a handful of incumbents, and firms that can simplify complex, multi-party transaction flows stand to unstick a persistent market problem. Ryft says it has tripled processing volume in the past 12 months and now serves more than 6,500 businesses, a mix of point-of-sale partners, marketplaces and charities that illustrates demand for its tooling.
Customers named by Ryft include Epos Now (a point-of-sale provider), Chaiwalla (food and beverage), the Disasters Emergency Committee (charity payments), Daytrip (travel platform) and Sprive (financial services). The breadth of these users shows the product is being tested across use cases where split payments, onboarding of sellers and cross-border payouts are core requirements.
Inside the product
Founded in 2021 by Alex Mackenzie, Richard Kirby and Sadra Hosseini (CEO), Ryft offers a single integration intended to handle seller onboarding and complex transaction flows. Key capabilities listed by the company are recurring billing, automated split payments, cross-border payouts and monetisation of transactions for merchants.
Ryft has struck technical and commercial partnerships with established card networks and payment processors, including Global Payments, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Nuvei. The business has also applied for a full EU licence from the Malta Financial Services Authority, a step intended to allow passporting across the European Economic Area.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by Gresham House Ventures, with participation from existing investors Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital. The £20m is being positioned to fund European and US expansion, product development and moves into higher-growth and enterprise segments. Gresham House has framed the deal as backing a UK-built, FCA-regulated payments infrastructure provider positioned for multi-party commerce; it also notes Ryft’s best customers are growing volumes by more than 100% a year.
In the announcement, Rohit Mathur, Partner at Gresham House Ventures, said:
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. As commerce shifts to instant, multi-party platforms and increasingly agent-initiated payments, ownership of the infrastructure rails becomes a question of national economic sovereignty, not just merchant cost. We're backing Ryft because the UK needs domestic champions with payment architecture for the next era of commerce, and Ryft is one of them. Sadra, Alex, Richard and the wider team are executing at an impressive pace, and we are proud to back this category-defining Manchester fintech!
In the announcement, Fred Ursell, Head of Investments at Pembroke Investment Managers, said:
Splitting a payment cleanly between multiple parties is slow, technical, heavily regulated work, which is precisely why the incumbents left it half-served for a decade, and precisely why it was worth building properly. We first met Sadra in 2024 and Ryft has since done everything he said it would in that first meeting. Plenty of founders can grow quickly for a year, but not many are deliberately building a team and a culture that will still be compounding in five. This is the third time we have backed Ryft, and our largest investment in the company to date.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Sadra Hosseini, Co-founder & CEO at Ryft, said:
This round of investment means we can take what we've built in the UK into new European markets and compete on the global stage. Payments have been dominated by a small number of incumbents for a long time. We want to provide a powerful and efficient alternative to businesses, not just in Europe, but globally.
Ryft’s founders have positioned the product around the idea that commerce is moving beyond simple buyer-seller interactions to multi-party models that require different rails. The company will need to balance growth with regulatory work — securing an EU licence and maintaining FCA alignment — as it targets larger enterprise customers.
The bigger picture
The funding comes as European policymakers and UK ministers emphasise building sovereign payments infrastructure and supporting homegrown technology firms that can scale internationally. Ryft’s push for an MFSA licence and its Manchester base underscore two trends: cross-border regulatory strategies for UK fintechs, and investor interest in regional fintech hubs beyond London.
In the announcement, Lucy Rigby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said:
Ryft's success is a vote of confidence in Manchester's thriving fintech sector and shows how British businesses can start, scale and compete on the global stage. This Government is backing the industries and companies like Ryft that are creating jobs, attracting investment and driving good growth in every postcode.
This deal will be watched by fintech investors hunting for companies that can replace or complement incumbent payment rails and capture revenue from increasingly platform-centric commerce.
Ryft’s raise illustrates how UK fintechs are pursuing both regulatory pathways and strategic partnerships to expand across Europe and the US, a pattern likely to continue as investors and policymakers prioritise payments infrastructure and economic sovereignty.
They've invested in Ryft
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| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
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 Gresham House Ventures( ) Gresham House Ventures focuses on scaling high-growth businesses across healthca... London  | ||||
 Pembroke VCT( ) Pembroke VCT is a c.£230m+ fund established in 2013, focusing on growth-stage in... London | ||||
 Ingenii Capital( ) | ||||
Pembroke VCT( ) Pembroke VCT is a c.£230m+ fund established in 2013, focusing on growth-stage in... London | ||||
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