UK open banking fintech Kikapay winds down
Open banking payments platform Kikapay is being wound down, becoming the latest UK fintech to close amid tough economic headwinds.
Kikapay winds down operations
Founded by Chris Moore and Philip Godden in 2018, the London-based start-up operated a platform that enabled customers to connect to the accounts of online businesses to initiate single immediate payments and fixed recurring payments via open banking.
Kikapay last secured funding through a 2021 seed funding round and counted Cyrus Jilla and Mohara among its investors, according to Crunchbase.
The company took to LinkedIn last week to announce that its journey had “come to an end” and that its platform and wider operations were “being wound down”. Its website was also quietly taken down.
As per its latest business filings, Douglas Pinteau and Dermot Coakley of specialist business restructuring practice WSM Marks Bloom LLP were instated as joint liquidators on 16 January, while corresponding documents reveal that the start-up was “wound up voluntarily”.
The start-up’s closure comes after mid-year reports revealed that open banking-enabled payments topped 11.4 million in July 2023.
The news follows the recent closure of another UK-based fintech, Paysme, with founder and CEO Derek Stewart saying “the challenges we faced during and post Covid meant the business was not in a sufficiently strong financial position to grow to the next milestone”.
