Ryft raises £5.7M for Embedded Payments + Highlights from our biggest Berlin Event yet

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Hi embedded finance friend

Usually, I write my newsletters in a quiet work-from-home environment from our flat in Berlin. But just a few hours after leaving our Berlin event venue (see below), I jumped onto a plane with my wife and daughter, heading to Mumbai.

Thus, this edition and the next few ones will be written in coffee shops, coworking spaces and the living room table of my in-laws. I am glad to be back in Mumbai to meet family and friends and get a break from our usual bubble. That being said, a few degrees colder would be better ;-) If you are in Mumbai in the next few weeks, let me know, and let’s meet!

And now, let’s dive in 👇

Recap of our 6th Embedded Finance Review Event

Last Wednesday, we hosted our sixth event in Berlin, the biggest ever. We counted 180 participants, compared to roughly 100 for our third event the year before.

A big thanks again to 13books Capital, Swan and Visa for sponsoring this event.

Visit our website for a longer event recap and if you want to know what kind of event I am considering hosting next.

Ryft secures £5.7M to power Embedded Payments for marketplaces and platforms

What happened: UK-based Ryft raised £5.7m for its Embedded Payments product offering. The company targets marketplaces and platforms with payment acceptance, split payments, and payment-related monetisation opportunities (PYMNTS).

My comment: Embedded payment is the entry door into embedded finance for many companies, especially marketplaces and vertical SaaS companies. We have seen this in the US with Shopify and Toast and in Europe with Mews. Many of these early movers have built their payment infrastructure on top of Adyen or Stripe. But we are now seeing more specialist payment providers that exclusively target companies where payment processing happens for their own customers (e.g., marketplaces, platforms, vertical SaaS).

Even though Stripe and Adyen also strongly focus on platform providers, there is clearly a demand for more providers. And that’s not only in Europe but also in the US, where Rainforest raised $20 million in June 2024 with exactly that offering and customer focus. And Ryft is not the only provider in Europe, as Rootline from the Netherlands seems quite similar. Also, I remember that Getpaid started with an Embedded Payments focus for platforms, but it seems they have pivoted. But I would not be surprised if there are more such companies. If you know any, please let me know.

Weavr partners with B4B Payments to enhance EU Embedded Banking offering

What happened: Embedded Banking provider Weavr has announced its integration with B4B Payments to boost its EU-based offering, including local IBANs (The Paypers).

My comment: This announcement is the next step for Weavr to transition towards leveraging its own e-money license, which the company announced in July 2024. So far, Weavr offers an Embedded Banking offering where Weavr provides the APIs and certain infrastructure, but the licence and adjacent parts of the value chain come from regulated partners (e.g., Paynetics). Thanks to the e-money license from Malta, Weavr can now contract directly with safeguarding accounts providers and other infrastructure providers.

Weavr is likely leveraging B4B Payments for its BIN sponsorship product for card issuing. Since B4B Payments is part of Banking Circle, Weavr will probably access local IBANs through them. The benefit is that several local IBANs can be leveraged without the need to open local branches. However, customers will see that the IBANs ”belong” to Banking Circle and not Weavr directly.

In other Embedded Finance News

• British-Spanish provider Toqio has opened a design studio for building corporate embedded finance applications. This no/low-code solution extends Toqio’s previous solution, which offers frontends for fintech products and provider aggregation services (Finextra).

• Mondu partners with Payin3 and Lemonway, which allows merchants in the Netherlands to offer flexible payment options to their buyers and tailored payment processes for B2B marketplaces (The Paypers).

• Tel Aviv-headquartered Unipaas partners with Mastercard to increase card acceptance for SMEs using vertical SaaS platforms where payments are still predominantly manual and offline (Finextra).

• Stripe applies for US Banking License to expand merchant acquiring capabilities (PYMNTS).

• Airwallex reportedly plans to seek US and UK banking licenses (PYMNTS).

• US Banking-as-a-service provider Solid files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (The Paypers).

Insightful stories

• Are traditional banks keeping up with Embedded Finance, or are they falling behind? Expert opinions (The Fintech Times)

• Drivers increasingly expect in-car payments as standard (Motor Trade News)

Event Calendar

• May 15th, Helsinki: Nordic Fintech Summit - I will be hosting a panel discussion [Register here]

• May 21st, Zurich: Embedded Finance Event hosted by newly founded Swiss Embedded Finance Association [More details]

• June 25th, Frankfurt: TechQuartier Digital Finance Accelerator - I will be hosting a Masterclass [Apply here]