Manchester paytech Orchestr rebrands as Upprove

Orchestr, the payments technology company with teams in Manchester and Sofia, has changed its name to Upprove.

The new name, visual identity and website have gone live, and the company's AI Payments Manager sits at the centre of the brand.

The old name described its method of routing each payment across different providers, while Upprove is intended to describe the result: getting more legitimate payments approved.

The company says three words are built into the name. “Up” refers to a declined payment being given another chance, “prove” to results merchants can check for themselves, and “approve” to what it calls the most important word in payments.

Upprove's CEO and co-founder Angel Gechev said: “Our old name described how we work. Upprove says what we’re here for: helping merchants get more of their payments approved. The best names tell you what a company does before it has said a word, and that’s what we wanted from ours.”

Mitko Karakashev, the company's chief marketing officer, said: “Payments brands tend to look alike and talk about technology. We built Upprove around the moment that matters most to a merchant: the answer that comes back after a customer presses pay.”

He added: “The name, the identity and our line, Payments that say yes, all start there. They also set out how we work: we make complicated things feel simple, we say things plainly, and we believe a no shouldn’t be the final answer.”

The first major public event under the new brand will take place in Manchester on 26 November. Upprove is a partner of FinTech North's Manchester Conference, held at the University of Manchester's Whitworth Hall, and will give a keynote to the region's fintech sector.

Upprove gives merchants access to the payment providers and methods they need through a single integration, sending each transaction to wherever it has the best chance of approval.

The AI Payments Manager gives plain-language explanations of declines and takes action on them within permissions set by each merchant. It also refines routing over time, provides insight into payment performance and points to markets where merchants could expand. The company says this means more declined payments end up approved, leaving merchants more time to grow.

The rebrand comes after a year in which the company was shortlisted in the SBC Awards' Payment Innovation of the Year category and the UK StartUp Awards' Global StartUp of the Year category, and reached the finals of the Visa Innovation Program Europe.