UK FinTechs VibePay and Smartlayer Close Down

VibePay, which was founded in 2019 and offered a consumer payments app that focused on account-to-account payments and targeted younger consumers, has entered liquidation, Finance Feeds reported Thursday (April 2), citing a Companies House filing.

The company found itself without acquisition support after a proposed acquisition by Banked was not completed, and without continued funding after investor backing was withdrawn, according to the report.

Finextra also reported on VibePay entering liquidation, saying that the company’s founder and CEO, Luke Massie, left VibePay in December.

Tech.eu reported that VibePay had been backed by Candy Ventures, which pulled the plug after conducting a strategic review of the business after the departure of Massie. A Candy Ventures spokesperson said, per the report: “The findings were shared with key investors in January, who decided not to commit further capital. As a result, and after exploring all available options, the board concluded that placing the business into liquidation was the only viable course of action.”

In another, separate development, Smartlayer, which operated for three years and applied data and artificial intelligence (AI) to household finance, mortgage underwriting and loan decisioning, has shut down, according to the Finance Feeds report, which cited a statement from founder Tahir Farooqui.

FinTech Futures also reported on the shutdown of Smartlayer, saying that the company was established in 2022, raised $835,000 in a seed funding round in 2024, and developed a flagship product called HomeScore that brought together data from smart meters, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings and open property data.

Farooqui said in a post on LinkedIn: “Building the infrastructure to make the $24T housing asset class machine-readable wasn’t just a business goal; it was ‘Stress-tested’ with Lloyds Bank over 15-months that validated a core truth: The legacy home finance stack is a liability. The risk of not replacing it now exceeds the risk of change.”

He added: “Looking ahead, I’m excited to continue exploring ways to use data and smart technology, through initiatives like Smartlayer, to make financial services more accessible for everyone.”