Manchester's Ryft Closes £20M Series B to Challenge Payments Incumbents Across Europe and the US
Manchester’s Ryft Closes £20M Series B to Challenge Payments Incumbents Across Europe and the US #
Ryft, a Manchester-based payments infrastructure company, has closed a £20 million Series B that it says is the largest UK payments Series B completed in 2026 so far. The raise comes as UK fintech investment has declined sharply: according to KPMG’s latest Pulse of Fintech report, investment fell to £1.8 billion in the first half of this year, down from £5 billion in the same period of 2025, with deal activity at its lowest level in a decade.
Gresham House Ventures led the round. Returning investors Pembroke VCT and Ingenii Capital also contributed, and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II joined as a new backer. Founded in 2021 by Sadra Hosseini, Alex Mackenzie and Richard Kirby, Ryft builds payment infrastructure for marketplaces, multi-sided platforms and multi-location businesses. The company serves more than 6,500 clients, including point-of-sale software provider Epos Now, the Disasters Emergency Committee and mortgage fintech Sprive.
Ryft says it tripled its transaction processing volume over the past twelve months. Proceeds from the Series B will fund geographic expansion into Europe and the United States, accelerate product development and support a push toward enterprise-scale customers.
Part of the European strategy depends on a pending application for a full payments licence from the Malta Financial Services Authority. If granted, the licence would allow Ryft to passport its regulated services across the European Economic Area without requiring separate authorisations in each member state.
CEO and co-founder Sadra Hosseini said the company wants to offer a “powerful and efficient alternative” to the small number of incumbents that have long dominated the payments market, in Europe and globally. Gresham House Ventures partner Rohit Mathur said ownership of payments infrastructure is a matter of national economic sovereignty as commerce shifts toward multi-party platforms and agent-initiated transactions.
Lucy Rigby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, welcomed the raise as a signal of confidence in Manchester’s fintech ecosystem and said the government is backing companies that create jobs and attract inward investment. The round comes alongside other European payments infrastructure investments in 2026, including rounds for Primer, Sokin and Amsterdam-based Silverflow.
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