UK-based Ryft , a PSD2-compliant payments provider, has obtained a grant from Innovate UK under the ‘Innovation within Professional and Financial Services’ tender. The grant, valued at up to GBP 5 million, is specifically crafted to encourage innovation within the UK's professional and financial services sector.

Through that, Ryft aims to automate payment flows within the travel industry. Fully automated payment flows within the travel industry Innovate UK is a national agency that is driving business growth and encouraging innovation across all UK regions. The agency provides various grant schemes, such as Horizon Europe, Energy Catalyst, and the Innovate UK Grant.

This helps businesses develop their product and service portfolios in a way that supports growth and business scaling across a variety of industries outside of financial services, including healthcare and aviation. According to the official press release, the competition for this grant provided by Innovate UK was tight, with only 8% of applicants receiving the funding they needed – Ryft being one of them. In addition to the grant, successful applicants will also receive support from the Innovate UK team in terms of providing business development and direction.

Ryft intends to use the grant to fund several areas of its business, including expansion into the travel and events industries. To aid in this, Ryft will be expanding its technical team to bring new functionality to its existing product, allowing for expansion into new markets. Traditionally, payment processing systems within the travel industry have been managed by manual systems, which are not conducive to modern transactions.

Knowing the difficulties expressed by large travel merchants it is currently working with, Ryft plans to fully automate payment flows within the travel industry, removing existing frictions and promoting ease of use. Commenting on the grant, Ryft stated that this allows to company to take the next steps towards expansion into new markets, where Ryft aims to make a series of improvements to the existing payment platform offerings available. Moreover, the company plans to grow its team, whilst building upon the current functionalities that the merchants rely on in their everyday transactions.

More about Ryft Ryft enables its customers with automated `next day` payouts for marketplace businesses, extending this benefit to both their customers and clients, for a single flat fee per transaction. Its PaaS service offers users the possibility to go through a fast and secure process of onboarding while utilising its KYC/KYB solutions, with the average approval time being allegedly just a few hours to remove the sub-merchant sign-up friction. In April 2023, the company secured its UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) licence and began to operate as a regulated payment facilitation.

The licence was obtained a couple of months after the company secured GBP 1,2 million in a seed round in August 2022. .