Ezbob is a new microfinancing company for online merchants which launches this week in the UK. It makes working credit of up to £20,000 available instantly to eBay and Amazon Marketplace sellers through automated underwriting. In this space there is Iwoca in the UK, but they only cater to ebay sellers. Ezbob covers both eBay and Amazon, a more more difficult ‘nut’ to crack. In the US, Ezbob would be similar to Kabbage, which has yet to scale internationally.
Founded by two Israeli entrepreneurs in 2011, Ezbob is the trading name of Orange Money, a privately-held UK company, which received angel funding last year and recently completed its Series A funding round. In the seed round, Ezbob raised £450,000 from Extreme Credit Systems. The Series A round raised £1.5 million from Keren Hagshama and £500,000 from high net worth individuals.
CEO and Co-founder, Tomer Guriel says Ezbob is aimed at small e-retailers typically with under £1 million in annual turnover, for whom securing funding from traditional sources can be challenging. According to IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) UK e-retail sales in 2012 are estimated to reach £77billion, and e-retail now accounts for 17 per cent of the total UK retail market.