A £7m-turnover Brighton business, which started life as a one-man-band on eBay and now operates an online platform for trading high-end cameras and lenses, has embarked on a funding round as it gears up to open an office in New York.

Mpb.com, founded ten years ago by "maths geek" Matt Barker, is seeking to raise £500,000 to help it maintain its impressive growth rate, which has seen it feature in the national Sunday Times Tech Track 100 list in 2015.

The company is offering investors 4.76 per cent of its equity on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube in return for the cash. The funding round is the first time it has sought external equity investment.

"We have had an amazing journey to date with incredible support from Barclays Bank to assist with working capital as we have expanded our UK market share," Mpb.com said in its funding pitch.

"We are raising growth capital now so that we can really open the taps on what we do for the first time, with increased marketing in the UK and expansion geographically into the USA, as well as launching across key EU countries."

Mpb.com employs a team of 27 quoting for £16m worth of photo and video products annually through a sophisticated custom-designed technology platform.

Following its success in the UK, the business is now hoping to replicate its model in Europe and the US. It has signed a lease for 5,000 sq ft of space in Manhattan with a launch pencilled in for January 2016. A soft BETA launch has also taken place in Germany.

Mpb.com has 24 days to raise the cash it requires for the Crowdcube pitch to be successful.