Pomegra
Ryft's £20M Series B, led by Gresham House Ventures, is the UK's largest payments deal of 2026, raised against a backdrop of decade-low British fintech deal activity.
- Gresham House Ventures led the £20M round; existing backers Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital also participated.
- Ryft tripled its payment processing volume year-on-year and now serves more than 6,500 businesses.
- UK fintech deal volume fell to 205 transactions in H1 2026, the lowest in a decade, making this round a notable exception.
Lead
Ryft, a Manchester-based payments infrastructure startup, closed a £20 million Series B on September 17, 2026, led by Gresham House Ventures. Existing investors Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital joined the round, which Ryft says is the largest UK payments Series B of 2026. Capital will be directed toward European and US expansion, product roadmap acceleration, and an upmarket push into enterprise clients. The company has applied for a full payment institution license from the Malta Financial Services Authority to unlock EU operations.
What Does Ryft Actually Build?
Ryft builds payment splitting infrastructure for platforms and marketplaces that sit between buyers and multiple sellers. A software platform using Ryft can collect a payment, split proceeds across multiple vendors, hold funds in sub-accounts, and trigger cross-border payouts from a single API - without constructing those layers from scratch. The company competes in positioning, if not yet in scale, against Stripe Connect and Adyen for Platforms.
Founded in 2021 by Sadra Hosseini, Alex Mackenzie, and Richard Kirby, Ryft now serves more than 6,500 businesses. Notable customers include point-of-sale provider Epos Now, disaster relief fundraiser Disasters Emergency Committee, and financial wellness app Sprive. The company processes through card scheme relationships with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, and acquiring partners including Global Payments and Nuvei.
Why Did This Round Close Now?
UK fintech fundraising has had a difficult 2026. Deal activity fell to 205 transactions in the first half of the year, down from 281 in the same period in 2025, and total capital deployed dropped from £5 billion to £1.8 billion. Ryft's £20 million Series B is a conspicuous outlier in that context.
The company's prior raise history helps explain the investor confidence. A £5.7 million Series A was followed by a follow-on from Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital in October 2025, suggesting both firms were tracking performance closely before re-investing at this scale. Tripling processing volume in 12 months is the kind of metric that sustains conviction. Gresham House Ventures, the lead, typically focuses on high-growth UK technology businesses at the growth stage; their decision to lead rather than participate signals a differentiated view on Ryft's market position. The round's valuation was not publicly disclosed.
Does the Malta License Change the Strategic Picture?
For Ryft, the EU license application is an operational necessity, not a rebranding exercise. Post-Brexit, UK payment institutions cannot passport their regulatory permissions into EU member states. Applying for a full payment institution license from the Malta Financial Services Authority would give Ryft a compliant EU foothold without requiring a full subsidiary in a major market such as Germany or France.
Malta has become a common licensing destination for UK-based fintechs seeking EU access. The practical tradeoff is time: MFSA approvals typically run six to eighteen months and carry ongoing capital and governance requirements. If the license clears on schedule, Ryft could offer compliant multi-party payment services to European platforms under EU regulatory cover - a meaningful differentiator against competitors that push compliance complexity back to the platform customer. The US market is mentioned as a parallel target, though no specifics on regulatory approach or entry timeline have been disclosed.
Outlook
Ryft exits its Series B with a strong volume growth story, a near-term priority in EU licensing, and a credible claim as the standout UK payments deal of an otherwise subdued year. The harder tests ahead are whether enterprise deals convert at the pace the team anticipates, and whether the Malta process completes before competitive dynamics shift. Multi-party payments infrastructure is a structurally growing need as platforms scale - Ryft's advantage is focus; its risk is that larger incumbents can extend their own platform products faster than Ryft can close the scale gap.
