Last week online retail portal Letsbuyit.com were granted a reprieve when a Dutch court gave them until 24 January to find £2.5m required to pay off their debts.

In December they announced that they needed to find around £50m to survive and could not find anyone to invest any further, however on Wednesday they managed to secure around £31.6m in funding which as resulted in their share prices doubling. The company also announced that their sales doubled in the last quarter of 2000 to 18m euros.

This funding was raised from existing investors including a German venture capital company, Kimvestor, who have committed to invest their money by the end of February.