Ryft, a Manchester-based payments company, raised £20m (about $26.8m) in a Series B round, announced on 17 September 2026.
Gresham House Ventures led the round. Existing investors Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital invested again, and PXN Ventures joined as a new backer through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.
Ryft said it was the largest Series B raised by a UK payments company in 2026. It did not disclose a valuation or its total funding to date.
“This round means we can take what we've built in the UK into new European markets and compete on the global stage.”Sadra Hosseini, CEO and co-founder, Ryft
What Ryft does
Ryft provides payment infrastructure for marketplaces, platforms and businesses with several locations. Through a single integration, customers can onboard sellers, split payments automatically, run recurring billing and send payouts across borders.
The company was founded in 2021 by Sadra Hosseini, its chief executive, with Alex Mackenzie and Richard Kirby. It is authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and works with partners including Global Payments, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Nuvei.
More than 6,500 businesses use Ryft, including Epos Now, Chaiiwala, the Disasters Emergency Committee, Daytrip and Sprive. The company said its transaction volume had tripled over the past year, but it did not give an absolute figure.
Its focus is on payments that involve more than one party, such as a marketplace taking a cut of a sale before passing the rest to a seller. According to IT Brief, Ryft said the company itself had tripled in size over the past 12 months, and Gresham House said Ryft's best customers were growing their payment volumes by more than 100% a year.
What the money is for
Ryft said it would use the funds to expand into Europe and the US, speed up its product roadmap and win larger, enterprise-scale customers.
To support its European plans, the company has applied to the Malta Financial Services Authority for a full EU licence. If granted, the licence would let Ryft offer its services across the European Economic Area.
"This round means we can take what we've built in the UK into new European markets and compete on the global stage," Hosseini said. He added that payments had long been dominated by a small number of incumbents.
Support from investors and government
Rohit Mathur, a partner at Gresham House Ventures, said the UK needs domestic champions with payment architecture for the next era of commerce, according to FinTech Global.
Pembroke, which first met Hosseini in 2024, was backing Ryft for the third time, and IT Brief reported that this was its largest investment in the company so far. Fred Ursell, head of investments at Pembroke Investment Managers, described splitting a payment between several parties as slow, technical and heavily regulated work.
Lucy Rigby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, described the raise as a vote of confidence in Manchester's fintech sector, FinTech Global reported.
The round came during a weak period for UK fintech funding. Ryft said investment in the sector fell to £1.8bn (about $2.4bn) in the first half of the year, the lowest level in a decade. IT Brief reported that higher interest rates and slower deal activity had made investors more selective.
Company website: ryftpay.com