Atlanta-based Kabbage targets merchants selling goods on sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo!, offering capital advances.

The firm's technology platform checks online merchants' business, including transaction history, customer traffic and reviews and products to make a judgement on offering working capital, with funding handed over in fewer than seven minutes.

Kabbage says that it has extended more than 50,000 individual advances to small businesses since launching, with annualised demand increasing more than tenfold from $20 million 12 months ago to $200 million today.

Having secured more than $50 million in funding and attracted big names such as former PayPal president Scott Thompson to its board, the company is now moving to expand outside of its home market.

Rob Frohwein, co-founder and CEO, Kabbage, says: "The UK is Europe's largest e-commerce market but small businesses there face the same challenge that American businesses face -- banks are hesitant to lend the capital so desperately needed. Given the size and demand of the UK market, it was the natural destination for our first launch overseas."