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Yaspa
Techstars '17London, GB · Founded 2017 · 73 employees on LinkedIn · 5 known investors
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Yaspa is a financial services company with a focus on workplace benefits and employee financial wellness. The company operates in the fintech sector with an emphasis on diversity and workplace culture.
Also known as Citizen
Founders & leadership
Yaspa was founded in 2017 by James Neville.
Investors · 5
How we know: Metavallon VC's portfolio page · research · fintech.global · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: a partner's Signal profile · Not right? Tell us
Also in the syndicate · 2
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$12M disclosed across 1 round · 2025
- $12MraisedJul 2025 · 7 sources
Discerning Capital (lead), Metavallon VC, TechStars Ventures
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Yaspa is a London-based financial technology company that combines open banking payment rails with identity and behavioural data. Its core proposition, marketed as "Intelligent Payments", pairs real-time account-to-account (Pay by Bank) transactions with verified customer insights such as financial resilience signals, dynamic income categorisation and real-time spending behaviour, which the company presents to operators alongside each payment.
The product set spans Instant Payments (open banking pay-ins intended to speed onboarding and reduce failure rates), Instant Payouts including cross-border withdrawals and refunds, and Account Verification with biometric, bank-grade checks for KYC. In the United States the company offers a variant line-up built on ACH: Guaranteed Payments using live balance checks and guaranteed deposits across Same-Day ACH from checking and savings accounts, instant RTP payouts, account verification and on-demand virtual accounts for funds management and reconciliation.
Yaspa is regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and serves regulated and high-risk sectors including iGaming, eCommerce, ePOS, trading and land-based gambling, where it emphasises chargeback-free settlement, fraud control and embedded player protections such as real-time identity verification and deposit limits.
Founding story
The company was founded in 2017 as 'Citizen' by two technology executives, including former Worldpay and Just Eat CTO James Neville, with the aim of connecting identity and payments. The founders' thesis was that combining payment and identity data would improve payment velocity, security and consumer trust; the product offering evolved and pivoted over time while that focus remained.
Business model
Yaspa sells payment and verification infrastructure to businesses, positioning open banking A2A transactions as a lower-cost, chargeback-free alternative to card payments while layering data insights on top of each transaction.
Traction
Yaspa reports customer partnerships across iGaming, kiosks and land-based casinos, and cites metrics on average conversion rate, average return user rate and speed relative to cards on its site. It has won industry recognition including the European iGaming Awards Best Payment Solution Provider 2026, Open Banking Expo Best Use of Data – Consumer 2025, Payments Awards Real-time Payments Innovation 2025, The Card & Payments Awards Best Payment Facility 2025, SBC Awards Europe Silver for Payment Solution of the Year 2025, and SiGMA Europe B2C Best Innovation in Responsible Gaming 2024.
Latest developments
In July 2025 Yaspa announced a $12m round led by Discerning Capital, with Discerning partner David Williams joining the board, to fund US market entry via a newly incorporated Atlanta entity, local hiring, partnerships and product adaptation for US operators. The company subsequently launched a US product line including ACH Guaranteed Payments and virtual accounts, and in September 2026 announced that Mandy Thompson had joined to lead US growth efforts.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Yaspa describes itself as an award-winning provider of payment and intelligence services and is backed by investors including Discerning Capital, Fin Capital, SGH Capital, Metavallon VC and TechStars Ventures. Its lead investor views the company's A2A product as a globally scalable alternative to traditional payment methods in gambling payments. It was one of the first open banking providers regulated as a payments institution by the FCA, in 2019.
The company combines payment execution with identity and behavioural intelligence in a single flow, rather than treating verification and payments separately, and targets chargebacks and player-protection requirements specific to regulated gambling. US Guaranteed Payments offer operators guaranteed outcomes on ACH deposits via live balance checks.
Technology
Yaspa's platform runs on open banking rails combined with AI, delivering real-time bank payments, instant settlement and payout, biometric identity verification, closed-loop flows and account ownership checks. Its intelligence layer converts transaction and bank data into risk, identity and behavioural signals, including cross-operator transaction views and income categorisation, and streamlines reconciliation. Payment journeys support app-to-app, web-to-app and web-to-web flows, and in the US the stack covers Same-Day ACH and RTP.
Go-to-market
The company sells directly to operators and also distributes through payment service providers and payment gateways such as PaymentIQ and Praxis. Integration options range from dashboard-based payment requests requiring no coding, to a hosted payment journey, to a fully embedded API. Partnerships with platform and terminal providers (for example Ask Global Solutions' PINTO kiosks and ISX Financial) and operator deployments such as Casino Lugano extend distribution, supported by demo requests and awards-based visibility in the iGaming and payments industries.
Regulated and high-risk merchants, particularly iGaming and land-based gambling operators, plus eCommerce retailers, ePOS and kiosk operators, and trading and investment platforms in the UK, Europe and the United States.
Geography
Headquartered in London with operations across the UK and Europe, including deployments in Italy and Switzerland referenced through Casino Lugano, and a US entity incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia, supported by a dedicated US website and US-specific product line.
History
Founded in 2017 as Citizen, the company became one of the first open banking providers regulated as a payments institution by the FCA in 2019. It won the Open Banking Expo Award for Best Open Banking Product in 2022, rebranded to Yaspa in 2023 while expanding across Europe, received an Innovate UK grant for a Safer Gambling platform in 2024, and won Best Payment Facility at The Card & Payments Awards in 2025. In July 2025 it raised $12m to fund US expansion and incorporated a US entity in Atlanta, Georgia.
Risks & controversies
The business is concentrated in regulated gambling payments, a high-risk, compliance-intensive segment, and its US growth plans depend on the pace of state-level iGaming legalisation and adoption of open banking in the US market.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Related companies · 8
Companies working in the same space as Yaspa.
Timeline · 18
launches, deals, and filingsYaspa announced a $12m funding round led by Discerning Capital with participation from TechStars Ventures and Metavallon, to fund entry into the US market.
$12M source ↗
Discerning Capital partner David Williams joined Yaspa's board following the $12m investment.
Yaspa incorporated a new US entity in Atlanta, Georgia, and planned to hire a local team, build partnerships and adapt its platform for US operators.
Ask Global Solutions integrated Yaspa's open banking payments into its PINTO kiosks.
Yaspa's US offering includes Guaranteed Payments across Same-Day ACH with live balance checks, instant RTP payouts, account verification and virtual accounts.
The company rebranded from Citizen to Yaspa as it continued to expand across Europe.
The company (then Citizen) became one of the first open banking providers to be regulated as a payments institution by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Yaspayaspa.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Yaspa do?
- Yaspa is a UK fintech using open banking and AI to deliver instant account-to-account payments and identity verification.
- Who founded Yaspa?
- Yaspa was founded by James Neville in 2017.
- Who are Yaspa's investors?
- Yaspa's investors include Metavallon VC, Techstars, Outrun Ventures.
- How much funding has Yaspa raised?
- Yaspa has disclosed $12M raised across 1 round.
- Where is Yaspa headquartered?
- Yaspa is headquartered in London, GB.