Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein. Photo credit: Web Summit on Flickr, under Creative Commons license

Financial services giant American Express is in talks to acquire Kabbage, the small business lender backed by the likes of SoftBank and BlueRun Ventures, as first reported [paywall] by Bloomberg. According to Bloomberg, AmEx could cough up as much as $850 million in cash for Kabbage in a deal that could be formalized as soon as this month. AmEx is the biggest provider of small-business credit cards in the US so scooping up a small business lender like Kabbage will help bolster its business.

Throughout its history, Kabbage, which was founded in 2008, has raised about $500 million in equity funding and even hundreds of millions more in debt funding. Investors in the company include the likes of SoftBank, BlueRun Ventures, Recruit Holdings, UPS, and Thomvest Ventures. On the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, business slowed for Kabbage, which then furloughed hundreds of employees and suspended customer credit lines as it grappled with drastic cuts in small business spending across the US. Right now, the company is focused on facilitating loans for small businesses from the U.S. government’s Paycheck Protection Program.

Earlier this month, it was reported by Barron’s that Kabbage had hired San Francisco-based investment bank FT Partners to explore a sale after receiving acquisition interest. Kabbage isn’t new to working with FT Partners, as the investment bank has facilitated fundraising for the company in the past.