Slope, AI-Led B2B Payments Platform, Secures $65 Million Strategic Equity and Debt Funding Provided by J.P. Morgan and Others
July 22, 2024
Source: Businesswire
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following continued strong traction and robust demand, Slope has closed an additional financing round, taking total funding to $252M ($77M in equity and $175M in debt). The funding will be used to scale operations as the B2B payments platform continues serving many of the world’s largest enterprises. Alongside J.P. Morgan Payments, other participants in the round include Y Combinator, Jack Altman, and Max Altman’s new fund, Saga.
Slope, a B2B payments platform for enterprise companies, offers order-to-cash automation using leading AI tools that power checkout, customer and vendor risk assessment, embedded short-term financing, and payment reconciliation.
J.P. Morgan Payments has chosen Slope to help provide clients access to a short-term financing solution that offers an extension of payment terms to such clients’ business customers, powered by Slope’s platform. Slope will join the J.P. Morgan Payments Partner Network, which delivers end-to-end payment experiences through an ecosystem of third-party applications that can grow businesses faster. J.P. Morgan will also provide a debt facility to help the business achieve additional scale.
“We announced our round late last year and were not looking to raise additional capital. However, working closely with J.P. Morgan, one of the world’s largest banks, represented a unique opportunity. We are excited to join the J.P. Morgan Payments Partner Network, with the equity investment and debt facility helping to support future growth,” said Lawrence Lin Murata, CEO and co-founder of Slope. “Working with J.P. Morgan will help us advance our technology so we can better serve more members of the Fortune 500. Slope embodies ‘Fin-Tech’ to the very core and is well positioned to win the opportunity to digitize the $125 trillion B2B economy.”
“The U.S. embedded finance market is determined to be worth $20 billion, with many corporates looking to implement solutions that reduce friction, streamline processes and support origination,” James Fraser, Global Head of Trade & Working Capital at J.P. Morgan Payments, said. “Working with Slope, our team at J.P. Morgan Payments can help meet client demand by providing access to a financing solution that integrates directly into the point-of-sale, translating into higher conversion rates. By combining J.P. Morgan’s fortress balance sheet and depth of client relationships with Slope’s strengths in underwriting and credit risk monitoring as well as platform flexibility, we are a well-positioned partner to meet our clients’ needs in a rapidly evolving market.”
J.P. Morgan Payments combines treasury services, trade & working capital and card and merchant services capabilities to help clients pay customers or employees in different currencies around the world. It processes nearly $10 trillion payments daily, operating in over 160 countries and over 120 currencies, and is #1 in USD payments volume.
Lawrence Lin Murata and Alice Deng founded Slope in late 2021 and have built an exceptional team in Silicon Valley.
Now, as part of its growth strategy and vision, Slope is launching SlopeAI. SlopeAI makes Slope’s AI underwriting platform available to financial institutions and wholesalers looking to onboard, underwrite and monitor their business clients faster and more seamlessly. This includes access to Slope’s LLMs for bank data enrichment (SlopeGPT, TransFormer), KYB/KYC powered by AI agents and internal production risk models that have yet to be announced. Slope is already working with some of the largest regional banks in the United States to launch these capabilities.
About Slope
Slope is a B2B payments platform offering order-to-cash workflow automation for enterprise companies. Slope is disrupting the way businesses manage transactions, optimize payment processes, and enhance customer experiences by seamlessly integrating AI tools into the order-to-cash workflow. Slope uses generative AI to power B2B checkout, customer and vendor risk assessment, payment reconciliation, and cash management, driving digital transformation in a sector that has remained largely unchanged for centuries. Backed by leading investors like Sam Altman, Slope is at the forefront of digitizing the B2B economy.