Open banking fintech Vyne raises $15.5 million in seed funding

Vyne says it processes millions of pounds worth of transactions each month at a growth rate of 95% month on month

Open banking fintech Vyne has secured $15.5 million in seed funding from leading fintech investors as it takes on traditional card and alternative payment methods.

Investors in the seed round include Hearst Ventures, Entrée Capital, Triplepoint, Seedcamp, Venrex, Founder Collective and Partech, alongside angel investment from Alex Chesterman, founder of Zoopla and chief executive officer of Cazoo, Charlie Dellingpole, chief executive officer and founder of ComplyAdvantage, and Will Neale, founder of Grabyo.

Founded in 2019, Vyne uses open banking to power account-to-account payments for online businesses. 

Using Vyne, payments can be completed by consumers in three-clicks and merchants can engage customers through more digital channels such as QR codes and pay-by-link, which can be sent by email, SMS, or in person. 

Coupling user experience with improved operational merchant services, Vyne says it empowers business growth by increasing conversion, reducing cost per transaction, streamlining business operations with quick, easy invoicing, and by providing a real-time view of cash flow.

Vyne says it processes millions of pounds worth of transactions each month at a growth rate of 95% month on month.

The $15.5 million investment will enable Vyne to increase international coverage and bring new use cases to market, forging the path to a future of account-to-account payments powered by open banking, challenging traditional card and alternative payment methods. 

Megumi Ikeda, managing director at Hearst Ventures comments: “The global financial ecosystem is moving rapidly away from traditional payments systems and towards open banking and real-time payments.”

“Vyne sits at the bleeding edge of this revolution, by improving the payment experience for all stakeholders. The team’s commercial success is testament to their expertise and commitment to innovation, and we’re delighted to be supporting their continued growth.”

Reshma Sohoni, partner and co-founder at Seedcamp, adds: “As leading payments experts, Vyne are the perfect team to capitalise on the new opportunities for innovation brought about by open banking.”

“Upon first meeting the team we really bought into their vision of delivering a frictionless, more secure end-to-end payments experience for consumers—all while saving merchants money. We’ve been enormously excited by their commercial progress to date and believe Vyne has the opportunity to become a global payments giant.”

Karl MacGregor, chief executive officer at Vyne, comments: “At its heart, Vyne was founded with the simple vision of  perfecting payments for businesses and consumers alike. This seed round will further propel Vyne on its mission to make account-to-account payments the best way to pay and get paid around the world.”

“The calibre of investment we have received is testament to not only the team’s hard work to date but also the opportunity open banking presents to overhaul the traditional banking and payment infrastructure that merchants and consumers have been beholden to for decades.” 

In the last quarter, Vyne made a number of strategic hires, including ex-Klarna and Laybuy executive Luke Flomo as chief revenue officer and Ors Kardos, previously of booking.com, as director of engineering. The business has also recently opened headquarters in Holborn, London.

Image: Vyne

Mark Dugdale