Riva Money

Riva Money is a London-based B2B cross-border payments company building dual-rail infrastructure that combines stablecoin-based blockchain settlement with traditional banking rails. Founded in 2025 by two fintech veterans from Revolut and Wise, the company routes each international payment dynamically through whichever channel — blockchain or fiat — delivers the best combination of speed, cost, and compliance for that specific transaction.

Cross-border business payments remain structurally broken. International transfers between companies are still predominantly routed through correspondent banking networks — chains of intermediary institutions that produce settlement times of one to five business days, per-transaction fees that compound through each intermediary, exchange rate spreads applied at multiple points, and limited visibility into where a payment is in the process. This friction is built into the architecture of the legacy system and cannot be resolved through incremental improvement. Even companies like Revolut and Wise, which have made genuine progress reducing friction for consumers and SMEs, largely operate on traditional fiat-to-fiat infrastructure.

Riva's dual-rail model addresses this at the infrastructure level. When a business sends a payment, Riva's system assesses in real time which rail — blockchain settlement via fiat-pegged stablecoins such as USDC or EURC, or traditional banking — will produce the faster, cheaper, more transparent outcome. Merchants and finance teams receive the benefits of near-instant blockchain finality where it is available, without needing to manage crypto wallets or accept volatility risk. The company is actively pursuing payment institution authorisation in the UK and EU, as well as MiCA and VASP licences in the EU and Switzerland. Riva Money Europe AB has been authorised as a Payment Institution by Sweden's Finansinspektionen.

Riva raised £2.2 million ($3 million) in pre-seed funding in August 2025, led by Project A, with angel participation from executives at Revolut, Monzo, Ebury, and JP Morgan. The capital is being used to expand operations across Europe, Asia, and North America, build out the engineering team, and advance the regulatory authorisation programme. The timing is favourable: regulatory frameworks for stablecoin payments are maturing rapidly across the UK, EU, and US, creating a clearer legal pathway for blockchain-based B2B settlement infrastructure.