Franchisees looking for a cash injection of up to $250,000 now have a new funding source in Moula.

This Australian platform launched its finance offer to small businesses in 2014. The brand has a strategic alliance with the accounting brand Xero.

As a result of the number of enquiries from the franchise space, Moula is now focused on reaching small sized franchise systems and franchisees looking to expand.

Gajia Lu, head of strategy at Moula, said the online application for short term, unsecured lending can be done in less than 10 minutes.

The provision of existing financial information is fundamental to the funding process.

An applicant opts-in to allow Moula to access online accounting information and financial data from online services. “We assess data on the spot,” Lu said.

“We don’t lend to brand new businesses, because there’s no data.”

The decision to lend can take less than 24 hours, depending on the information available.

Moula also linked recently with FranData, an organisation which can provide information on registered franchise systems.

“We can find out how they select franchisees. If it’s robust, we take that into account,” she said.

“At the moment our focus is on getting the Moula brand out there and engaging in brand awareness initiatives. But we do have financial targets and groups we’d like to bring on.”