PayTech startup Ryft announces seed round led by SFC Capital

Ryft, a PSD2 compliant payments system firm, has raised a seed round, led by SFC Capital.

Additional investors include the ex-founder of Shutterstock and the founder of LoveFilm.

This brings Ryft’s total funding to date to £1.2 million. 

Ryft enables automated next day payouts for marketplace businesses and their merchants, for a single flat fee per transaction.

Think Stripe Connect without the high fees and lengthy payout wait times, the startup says.

The idea for the business came from 18-year long best friends and co-founders Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie’s first business, a mobile ordering marketplace app for pubs and bars.

They scaled this up during the pandemic, reaching over a million customers and 500 active venues at their peak.

The pair identified a gap in the market for the profitability of microtransactions and fast payouts and there Ryft was born.

Many marketplaces are caught unaware of PSD2 compliance, they claim, presenting a unique opportunity to capture market share by presenting a solution that fixes this and takes administerial headache away from finance teams. 

Hosseini comments: “We are both incredibly excited to be working with SFC Capital to further our ability to provide seamless support to marketplaces and merchants within the industry and continue to solve the current problems associated with complex money routines under PSD2 regulation.”

“Ryft was created to handle everything so your business doesn’t have to.”

Ed Stevenson, Investment Manager at SFC Capital, says: “We are excited to work with Ryft in supporting marketplace businesses with a unified payment platform designed to power B2B platforms and provide a seamless experience for merchants and marketplaces.”

“Following the success of their first business, Sadra and Alex have put together the essential aspects to solve the pain points experienced in the business payment platform landscape.”