• Michael Woodburn, former Chief Operating Officer, Capital One, becomes board chairman while Luke Griffiths, Chief Commercial Officer, Klarna, and Myles Dawson, former UK Managing Director, Adyen, have joined Kriya’s board.
• Appointment of senior fintech and payments industry leaders and launch of new Kriya brand signal company’s growth and future potential in $100 trillion global B2B payments and Embedded Finance market.

London, 30 November 2022 - Kriya, the new name for fintech platform MarketFinance, today announces the appointment of senior Capital One, Klarna and Adyen alumni to support the company’s increasing focus on B2B payments and Embedded Finance, a market recently estimated by Activant Capital to be worth more than $100 trillion globally.

In the UK alone, SMEs turned over an estimated £2.3 trillion in 2021. By providing frictionless access to payments, credit and working capital through seamless integrations and instant credit decisions, Kriya keeps business flowing brilliantly. Founded in 2011 and after seeing strong profitable growth in 2021, Kriya has helped businesses collect over £20 billion in B2B payments, and advanced over £3 billion worth of credit through working capital and business loans. 

Michael Woodburn becomes Kriya’s new board chairman. Woodburn, a current board member of the leading UK fintech Zopa, who previously held roles at Oakbrook Finance as Chief Executive and at Capital One as Chief Operating Officer, brings significant experience of data, analytics, risk management and lending to Kriya.

Also joining Michael on Kriya’s board are Luke Griffiths and Myles Dawson. Luke Griffiths led Klarna’s UK business between 2016 and 2020, and is now the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, where his responsibilities include helping scale the business globally and leading its go-to-market and business development teams. Myles Dawson served as Adyen’s UK Managing Director between 2012 and 2022, opening the company’s first office in this country and leading the UK business to over 100 people, whilst helping Adyen become one of the most valuable fintech companies in the world. 

Commenting on the appointments, Anil Stocker, Kriya’s co-founder and CEO said: “I am delighted to welcome Michael, Luke and Myles to Kriya. Collectively they have a wealth of experience at some of the world’s leading fintech companies, and bring important capabilities that will help drive our current and future product offering. We aim to become the world’s leading B2B payment and credit provider, so their experience in risk and data, international growth, and building payment and credit tools that are frictionless to use for suppliers and buyers will be vital.”

Alongside the new appointments, Kriya is also launching its new company brand. A Sanskrit word denoting a state of flow and completed action, Kriya reflects the company’s desire to apply technology to help liberate businesses from the cashflow worries of today. Through seamless payment and credit solutions, firms can focus on what’s important to them: keeping their business flowing brilliantly.

One such firm is Materials Market, a platform connecting trade buyers and suppliers in the construction industry to find the best prices and delivery times. In the first month after integrating Kriya Payments, Materials Market saw a 579% increase in transaction volume and 186% increase in average order value after two months. The company expects Embedded credit sales to grow to around 50%-60% of total transactions on its platform.

Sam Hunt, co-founder and CEO of Materials Market said: “We’ve seen significant growth in sales volume and order value since partnering with Kriya to offer credit on our platform. Suppliers like being paid up front, buyers value being able to pay in instalments, and the ability to automate and scale the provision of credit is hugely efficient for our business. The overall experience working with the Kriya team has been great - a true end-to-end partner with us every step of the journey. We expect the majority of transactions on Materials Market will soon involve this form of payment option.” 

‍Commenting on Kriya’s involvement in Embedded Finance to date, Anil Stocker said: “We began offering Embedded Finance in January 2022 and have seen demand grow significantly as the current economic environment means both suppliers and buyers are very focused on payment terms. Since launch Kriya has made available more than £60m in credit via this channel to more than 2,000 buyers. On average, buyers using it borrow £825 per transaction, but with returning customers using more than £6,000 in credit per month, this shows significant potential for SMEs to use this form of credit as part of their daily operations. And with Kriya’s single largest payment to date worth more than £63,000, buyers are also using it to fund strategic projects and big ticket items.”