Ryft Raises £20 Million Series B to Expand Payments Platform Across Europe and the U.S.

UK payments company Ryft has raised £20 million in Series B funding as it prepares to expand its embedded payments platform across Europe and the United States.

The Manchester-based company said the round was led by Gresham House, with existing investors Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital also participating. New investor PXN Ventures joined through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. Ryft described the raise as the largest UK payments Series B of 2026, a claim made by the company based on its own assessment.

The funding arrives after a year of rapid growth for Ryft. The company says its payment processing volume tripled over the past year, while more than 6,500 businesses now use its platform.

Ryft plans to use the new capital to accelerate expansion into Europe and the U.S. and to increase adoption among high-growth and enterprise businesses.

That international push is already taking shape. Ryft has applied for a full EU license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). If approved, the license would allow the company to passport its services across the European Economic Area. The MFSA confirms that authorization is a formal regulatory process and that firms must meet the applicable requirements before receiving permission to provide regulated financial services.

Ryft Raises £20 Million for Its Next Stage of Growth

The Series B gives Ryft fresh capital at a point when the payments company is broadening its ambitions.

Ryft was founded in 2021 by Sadra Hosseini, Alex Mackenzie, and Richard Kirby. Its platform is aimed at marketplaces, platforms, and merchants that want to manage payment acceptance, seller onboarding, split payments, payouts, and other payment operations through a single integration.

The latest funding round brings together both returning and new investors.

Gresham House led the round, while Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital followed on from their earlier investments. PXN Ventures, investing through NPIF II, is joining the group for the first time.

Ryft has not disclosed a valuation following the fundraise.

For the company, the immediate priority is expansion rather than another major product reset. It wants to take the payments infrastructure it has built in the UK into new markets while moving further upmarket with larger businesses.

Europe Is the First Major Expansion Step

The European market is central to Ryft’s next phase.

As part of its expansion plans, Ryft has applied for a full EU license from the Malta Financial Services Authority. If the application succeeds, the company says it would be able to passport its services across the European Economic Area.

The license is not yet granted.

That distinction matters because Ryft currently operates under its existing UK regulatory framework. Its website states that Ryft Pay is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an authorized payment institution and is PCI DSS Level 1 certified.

Moving into the EU would give the company a regulatory base for a larger European payments footprint.

For a payments provider, that matters because expansion across multiple European markets involves more than simply adding customers. Licensing, compliance, safeguarding, payments connectivity, and local operational requirements all become part of the challenge.

Ryft is therefore trying to build the regulatory and technical foundation alongside its commercial expansion.

Ryft Is Moving Beyond Domestic Payment Processing

The funding also comes shortly after another important product expansion.

Earlier in September, Ryft launched FX conversion and cross-border payouts in more than 35 currencies. The feature allows UK and European merchants to convert, settle, and pay out internationally through the same platform instead of relying on a separate foreign-exchange provider.

The company says merchants can select a currency and amount and receive a live exchange rate. Conversions can settle on the same business day when submitted before the relevant cut-off time. Its published coverage includes currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, and CHF across markets spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas.

The timing is significant.

Ryft is now combining payment acceptance with the next steps of a transaction: conversion, settlement, and payout.

That makes the platform more useful for businesses selling across borders, particularly marketplaces and platforms that need to collect payments from customers and then distribute funds to sellers or service providers in different currencies.

A Broader Embedded Payments Platform

Ryft’s core proposition remains embedded payments.

The company provides payment acceptance for online and in-person transactions, along with recurring billing, seller onboarding, automated split payments, escrow, and transaction monetization.

For marketplaces, the ability to split incoming payments and automate payouts can be especially important.

A marketplace may collect one payment from a customer but need to divide the proceeds between multiple sellers. A platform may also need to hold funds temporarily, verify sellers, calculate commissions, and manage payouts.

Ryft is trying to bring those functions together through a single integration.

Its platform supports major card networks, including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, alongside digital wallets and other payment methods. Ryft also says it has partnerships with Global Payments, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Nuvei.

That gives the company a foundation for serving businesses that do not want to assemble their payment stack from several different providers.

Ryft Is Targeting High-Growth and Enterprise Businesses

Ryft says the new funding will also support greater adoption among high-growth and enterprise businesses.

That is an important shift as the company moves into its next stage.

Enterprise payments are often more demanding than serving smaller merchants. Large businesses typically need deeper integrations, stronger compliance controls, reliable reporting, more sophisticated settlement flows, and support for multiple markets and currencies.

Ryft’s recent expansion into FX and cross-border payouts fits that direction.

The more functions a payment provider can handle within one platform, the fewer external systems a business may need to connect.

For marketplaces in particular, that can simplify the movement of money from customer checkout through merchant settlement.

Ryft’s Growth Has Accelerated

The latest round follows a year in which Ryft says it tripled its processing volume.

More than 6,500 businesses are now using the platform, according to the company’s Series B announcement. Ryft lists customers including Epos Now, Chaiwalla, the Disaster Emergency Committee, Daytrip, and Sprive.

Those customers span different use cases, but they share a need for integrated payment infrastructure.

The company is also building a wider network around its platform through partnerships with major payments companies.

That combination of processing growth, customer expansion, and broader functionality gives Ryft a stronger base from which to attempt international growth.

The U.S. Comes Next

Europe is the first major regulatory expansion, but the U.S. is also part of Ryft’s funding plan.

The company has said the £20 million will help support its expansion into both Europe and the United States.

The U.S. opportunity is significant for payments infrastructure, but it also comes with a complex regulatory and commercial landscape.

For Ryft, the goal appears to be taking the same platform model used in the UK and extending it to businesses operating across multiple regions.

That means the company will need to continue investing in acquiring relationships, payment network connectivity, compliance, and product localization as it enters new markets.

Its European strategy could therefore serve as a useful test of how effectively Ryft can take its technology and operating model beyond the UK.

A Payment Platform Built Around Marketplaces

Marketplaces and platforms remain a particularly important part of Ryft’s strategy.

These businesses often have complicated payment requirements because they sit between buyers and sellers.

Instead of simply processing one card transaction, a marketplace may need to:

• Accept customer payments
• Verify sellers
• Split transaction proceeds
• Hold funds
• Calculate commissions
• Manage recurring payments
• Pay sellers
• Handle refunds and disputes
• Convert currencies

Ryft‘s product is designed around many of those workflows. Its platform includes split payments, delayed and recurring payments, seller onboarding, escrow, and transaction monetization.

The company is now adding cross-border FX and payouts to that stack.

That creates a broader proposition: not just helping a business accept a payment, but helping manage what happens to the money afterwards.

Payments Competition Is Expanding

Ryft’s funding also comes at a time when the payments industry is becoming increasingly competitive.

Large global processors continue to invest heavily in infrastructure, while fintechs are trying to give merchants and platforms more flexible alternatives.

Ryft’s CEO and co-founder Sadra Hosseini said the company wants to give businesses an alternative to the small number of established payment players that have historically dominated the market.

The challenge now is turning that ambition into scale.

Building a payments company across multiple jurisdictions requires much more than a strong API. It requires regulatory permissions, reliable payment connections, risk management, merchant support, and the ability to handle growing transaction volumes without adding unnecessary complexity for customers.

Ryft’s latest funding gives it more resources to tackle those requirements.

Regulation Will Be Central to the Expansion

The Malta license application is one of the most important pieces of the European strategy.

The MFSA says applicants must go through a structured authorization process designed to assess whether they satisfy the relevant regulatory requirements. The authority also emphasizes the importance of ongoing supervision once a firm is authorized.

Ryft therefore still has a regulatory milestone to clear before it can use the license to passport its services across the EEA.

For the company, that creates a parallel track.

On one side, it is expanding its product capabilities, including FX and cross-border payouts. On the other, it is building the regulatory foundation needed to operate more broadly in Europe.

That combination will be central to whether its international strategy can move from plan to scale.

The Road Ahead for Ryft

The £20 million Series B gives Ryft room to invest in technology, expansion, and customer growth at the same time.

The next stage will involve executing across several fronts: expanding in Europe, entering the U.S., growing enterprise adoption, and continuing to extend the payment infrastructure available through its platform.

Its recent FX launch shows the direction already underway. Instead of stopping at card acceptance, Ryft is building more capabilities around conversion, settlement, and payout.

The company is also moving toward a model in which marketplaces and platforms can handle more of their financial operations through one payment infrastructure provider.

TheFinRate Take

Ryft’s £20 million Series B is significant because the company is raising capital at the point when its business is moving from a UK payments provider toward a broader international payments platform.

The company says processing volume tripled over the past year, more than 6,500 businesses now use its platform, and the new funding will support expansion into Europe and the U.S.

The European strategy is already taking shape through Ryft’s MFSA license application, while its new 35+ currency FX and cross-border payout capability give merchants more tools for international commerce.

The bigger opportunity is embedded payments.

If Ryft can combine payment acceptance, seller onboarding, split payments, FX, settlement, and payouts into one platform, it could become a more useful infrastructure layer for marketplaces and high-growth businesses expanding across borders.

The funding gives Ryft the resources to test that model on a much larger stage.

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