48. Iwoca

Founders: Christoph Rieche and James Dear
Founded: March 2012
Website: www.iwoca.co.uk

For businesses making most of their sales from online stores such as eBay and Amazon, obtaining funding for growth is a daunting prospect – banks are often reluctant to lend as revenues are small and most online retailers have no large assets to secure loans against. But ecommerce is fast becoming big business, with the sector seeing year-on-year double-digit growth as more and more of the retail world moves online. Small business loans company Iwoca aims to take advantage of this by uniquely offering online retailers loans based on metrics such as their sales performance and feedback score from customers, allowing small ecommerce retailers to access finance they would find it difficult to obtain elsewhere. The business has received rave reviews from its customers and turned over £75,000 in its first year. With the platform now firmly established, the founders have ambitious plans to quickly scale up the business with a revenue target of £1m for 2013.