By Funded Work Editorial Desk · AI-assisted summary · sources linked below when available
Manchester payments fintech Ryft lands £20 million Series B to take on Europe
Gresham House Ventures led the round, with Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital returning, as Ryft says it tripled processing volume this year and now serves over 6,500 businesses.
Ryft, a Manchester payments company, has raised £20 million in a Series B led by Gresham House Ventures, with existing backers Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital returning.
The company builds infrastructure that splits a single transaction among more than two parties. It plugs into acquiring banks and gives them the tools to split a payment, hold part of it in escrow, and pay out multiple parties on different schedules through a single integration. A marketplace selling tickets on behalf of hundreds of independent promoters, for instance, can take its commission at checkout, hold the rest until the event, then pay each promoter automatically instead of reconciling hundreds of payouts by hand.
It is Ryft's third funding round since 2021: a £1.2 million seed in 2022, a £5.7 million Series A led by EdenBase in April 2025, and now this Series B, which takes total funding to around £27.4 million. By the company's own count, it is the largest UK payments Series B of the year.
Hosseini, Alex Mackenzie and Richard Kirby founded Ryft in 2021, after Hosseini and Mackenzie sold Butlr, a mobile-ordering app for pubs and bars, to OrderPay. Hosseini is chief executive.
The raise lands in a contracting UK fintech market. Investment fell to £1.8 billion in the first half of 2026, the lowest level in a decade. Competition in the payments stack remains heavy: Stripe Connect and Adyen dominate the end of the market Ryft targets, and neither is standing still. London's Primer closed a $100 million Series C in May 2026, taking its total funding to $170 million, to build an AI layer across the payments stack, while card issuer-processor Paymentology raised $175 million the same month.
Ryft says it tripled its processing volume this year and now serves over 6,500 businesses. The proceeds are earmarked for taking its UK-built product into new European markets and competing globally, according to its chief executive.
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.