Riva Closes Pre-Seed Round Led by Project A

We're excited to announce that Riva Money has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding, led by Project A and supported by experienced angel investors from companies including Revolut, Ebury, Monzo, and J.P. Morgan.

At Riva, our mission is to fix what's broken in global payments. Despite huge advances in consumer fintech, cross-border business payments are still slow, expensive, and opaque. Transfers can take days and often involve high fees, poor exchange rates, and little transparency. We're here to change that.

Rebuilding Global Payments for businesses

We're building a blockchain-powered payment platform designed specifically for businesses. By blending traditional and blockchain-based routing, we'll be able to optimise each transfer for speed, cost, and compliance — giving businesses more control over how they move money across borders.

Whether routed via stablecoins or traditional fiat rails, each transfer will be handled in the most efficient way possible for the customer's location and needs. The result: faster, cheaper, and more transparent global payments — without compromising on compliance or trust.

"Our mission is simple: to enable businesses' limitless global money movement — at a fraction of today's cost," said Niklas Hoejman, co-founder and CEO of Riva.

Mahendra Katoch, co-founder and CTO of Riva continues: "By combining blockchain technology with a robust regulatory framework, we're building a solution that offers businesses the speed, transparency, and cost-efficiency they need to thrive in today's interconnected economy."

A Market Ripe for Change

The global cross-border payments market is projected to grow from $212 billion in 2024 to $320 billion by 2030, driven by businesses demanding faster, lower-cost, and more reliable ways to move money internationally. At the same time, stablecoins and digital assets are gaining traction — not just in innovation circles, but also in mainstream regulation.

Governments in the UK, US, and EU are now rolling out legal frameworks for stablecoins and digital value transfer. We see this shift as a major opportunity: to harness blockchain where it adds real value, while maintaining the regulatory clarity and safeguards businesses expect.

Malin Posern, Partner and Managing Director at Project A, said:

"With stablecoin adoption accelerating and regulatory frameworks maturing globally, the time is right for an infrastructure rethink. Riva's dual-rail system for businesses elegantly solves for both speed and flexibility in a market that's still reliant on legacy processes. Niklas and Mahendra's deep expertise in payments and financial markets positions Riva perfectly to build the next generation of payment services."

Backed by Experience, Built for Scale

Riva was founded by Niklas Hoejman and Mahendra Katoch, both fintech operators with experience at Revolut, Wise, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. Even at the forefront of fintech innovation, they saw how legacy systems continue to slow things down and drive up costs — prompting them to build something better.

What's Next

With the core of our platform nearing completion, we're preparing for launch and continuing to grow our team. This funding will enable us to expand our operations globally, with a focus on Europe, Asia, and North America, and to grow our engineering team to accelerate product development.

We're also actively pursuing payment institution authorisation across the UK and EU, as well as MiCA and VASP registrations in the EU and Switzerland — building a regulatory foundation that supports our long-term growth and customer trust.

We're just getting started — and we're excited for what's ahead.