Barclays is providing a £1.5m finance facility for augmented reality platform Blippar. The move is designed to ease the pressures placed on the business’s cashflow by large clients’ pay structures. The mobile image recognition software company services large global businesses including Nestle, Kraft and Coca-Cola.

Since it was founded in the UK in 2011 Blippar has expanded into several global markets including the US, India and Japan. It currently has 200 employees and 50 million worldwide users.

It is planning on further expansion in the near future – fuelled by the Barclays funding along with employee expansion.

The Blippar app is available on all major mobile platforms. It allows users to scan a brand logo or the Blipp symbol and unlock interactive content.

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Juliet Rogan, relationship director in Barclays’ Technology, Media and Telecoms team, called Blippar’s growth in the past four years “quite remarkable”.

“To become an industry leader in such a short space of time is testament to the founders’ ability to identify a world-changing idea and execute a business strategy, which quickly captured the attention of major brands like Coca-Cola and Samsung,” he said.

Blippar CEO and co-founder Ambarish Mitra said that, as development and payment cycles in big brands can be long, his company needs to “function like a much bigger business”.

“In reality, we are still a relatively small company and have all the same pain-points as an SME,” he continued.

“Knowing the financial support is there to manage money going in and out of the business gives us increased confidence in working with global industry-leading organisations.”

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