Existing investor SoftBank has agreed to invest $250m in the small-business lender, increasing its overall funding to about $490m since 2009.

Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank agreed yesterday to invest $250m in US-based business finance platform Kabbage

Kabbage runs an online platform that uses an automated system to lend money to businesses in a space of minutes. It has provided almost $3.5bn in financing to more than 100,000 companies since the platform was launched in 2011.

SoftBank’s investment will be used to further develop Kabbage’s software, which it also licenses to financial services firms to power their small and medium-sized business…