Square Wants to Compete With Small Business Lenders

Square is beefing up its effort to finance small business owners. The San Francisco company, best known for making credit card readers that plug into mobile phones and tablets, has provided $50 million in financing to more than 10,000 merchants since last year through a business called Square Capital. Today the company announced it has raised funding to expand the program and extend “hundreds of millions of dollars” in financing to Main Street, according to a release.

The new funding comes from Victory Park Capital, a Chicago firm that previously provided $75 million in debt financing to Kabbage, another online small business lender. Faryl Ury, a spokeswoman for Square, declined to say how much the company raised.