Sam Altman Backs Slope’s 30 Million Dollar Round To Digitize and Scale Business-to-Business Payments
In a significant development, Slope, a business-to-business (B2B) payments platform catering to enterprise companies, has closed a venture round of $30 million. The fresh funding will be utilized for product development as the company continues to onboard larger clients.
A Brief History of Slope
Since its inception in 2021 by co-founders Lawrence Lin Murata and Alice Deng, Slope has been striving to digitize the massive $125 trillion B2B payments market. The core of Slope’s technology lies in order-to-cash workflow automation, utilizing artificial intelligence-driven tools for checkout, customer and vendor risk assessment, payment reconciliation, and cash management.
New Investment and Product Launch
The latest investment follows Slope’s recent product launch of SlopeGPT, which Murata described as the first payments risk model powered by GPT. This development underscores the company’s commitment to leveraging AI in enhancing its offerings.
As per Murata, "Our involvement in AI predates all the AI hype cycle. Since before our seed, AI was a big differentiator for us. As we collect more data, we are able to leverage larger and larger models, so we swapped GPT, which is building on top of GPT embeddings for payments risk, which is an essential application for succeeding between payments."
Slope’s Expansion Plans
The new funding has been led by Union Square Ventures, which co-led the Series A round in 2022. The investment included significant participation from OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
"Slope’s quest to reshape the B2B payments experience and bring the sector into the digital age is audacious — and that’s why I chose to back them," stated Altman in a written statement.
In fact, inclusion in the investment was highly sought after, with Murata revealing that the company received multiple offers from investors and was oversubscribed. Moreover, Slope was preempted, a rare occurrence given the current economic environment and the drying up of venture capital investments.
Other Key Participants
Apart from Union Square Ventures and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, other notable participants in the round include:
- Y Combinator
- monashees
- Jack Altman from Lattice
- Alex Bouaziz from Deel
- Mathilde Collin from Front
- Michael Tannenbaum from Brex
- Rujul Zaparde from Zip
With this latest round, Slope has raised a total of $187 million in equity and debt.
Growth and Evolution
In its early years, Slope primarily worked with startups. However, the customer pipeline has since evolved to mainly comprise enterprise companies, including Fiserv. As a result, both volume and company revenue have increased by 17x since last year.
"As people transition to the digital B2B payments world, we really need the experience to be smooth," emphasized Murata. "We don’t see AI as being something that’s very front-and-center in that user experience. Instead, we actually see it as an invisible experience that’s helping automate and streamline the processes, even if they’re not aware of what is the technology happening behind it."
Fintech Predictions and Opportunities for 2023
The fintech industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace. In 2023, we can expect to see increased adoption of AI-powered solutions, further digitization of financial services, and a greater focus on regulatory compliance.
As the B2B payments landscape continues to shift, companies like Slope will play a crucial role in shaping the future of financial transactions.
Conclusion
Slope’s latest funding round is a testament to its innovative approach to B2B payments. With its continued emphasis on AI and product development, the company is poised for significant growth in the years to come.
As the fintech industry continues to evolve, we can expect to see more companies like Slope at the forefront of innovation and disruption.
