A tech company which has created what it claims is the world's first automated scheduling tool for photo sharing website Instagram has secured £100,000 in new investment.

Hopper HQ launched 'Hopper' last summer in a bid to help Instagram users post content for a specific date and time, similar to applications such as Hootsuite and Buffer which offer the service for social networking sites like as Facebook and Twitter.

The company has now secured a £100,000 grant from the Birmingham Post Growth Fund with a further £300,000 being injected by the company's owners.

The new capital is intended to accelerate the pace of global growth and to support plans to expand the team by 50 per cent during 2016.

Hopper has the same range of picture-editing tools which are available within the main Instagram app as well as allowing photos to be uploaded from multiple sources such as Dropbox, Google Drive and a user's own files.

It offers three standard packages and bespoke options for agencies.

Mike Bandar, co-founder of Hopper HQ which is based at Innovation Birmingham Campus, said: "Just five months since the launch of Hopper, the business has grown considerably and we are now working with hundreds of customers across over 30 countries.

"The grant will provide vital support and flexibility to help maximise this growth as we continue to build the business and extend our offering to new and existing customers.

"With a phased recruitment programme currently under way, myself and my co-founder James Vardy are looking to extend our Birmingham-based team."

Hopper HQ's parent company Turn Partners is one of 120 tech start-up companies which have taken part in the Entrepreneurs for the Future programme at Innovation Birmingham since it launched November 2009.

Initial investment rounds have raised more than £10 million.h

It is also one of 18 early-stage tech companies to receive support from the e4f Inspire programme which delivers a series of workshops, keynote events, entrepreneur dinners, off-site visits and funded internship placements in order to accelerate the growth of entrepreneurial tech companies.