As small businesses recover from the pandemic, many need flexible options for paying their suppliers.
Lawrence Lin Murata and Alice Deng, the founders of a San Francisco startup, think they can help, borrowing a page from an increasingly popular service in the consumer world. Slope Tech Inc. offers a deferred payment service — a so-called buy now, pay later option — for small companies and their suppliers. Its service is targeted at the kind of companies that have limited working capital and struggle to get access to business loans.
"Our goal is to empower growing businesses by making access to capital easy," Slope Tech says on its website.
The startup offers software that suppliers can integrate into their online payments systems. If a supplier's customer chooses a deferred payment option from Slope, the startup's software will quickly determine the customer's credit risk and create a customized payment schedule. Slope pays the supplier up front once the goods are shipped then works on its own to collect payments from the customer.
The startup has some new funding to grow its business. It announced last week it had raised $24 million in a Series A round. The new funding comes about five months after it raised an $8 million seed round and some eight months after it participated in Y Combinator's accelerator program.
You can find more on Slope's latest deal and this past week's other Series A news below:
Cal.com Inc., San Francisco, $25 million: Seven Seven Six led the round for this developer of a shared calendar application. OSS Capital, Obvious Ventures and Daily.co also invested.
Slope Tech Inc., San Francisco, $24 million: Union Square Ventures and Monashees led the round for this provider of a deferred payment service that online vendors can offer to customers. Tiger Global Management and Global Founders Capital also invested.
Typeguard Inc. (dba Glide), San Francisco, $20 million: Benchmark led the funding for this developer of software that enables users to create apps from spreadsheet data without the need for difficult coding. Y Combinator, First Round and SV Angel also invested.
Prezent Inc., Los Altos, $20 million: Greycroft led the round for this developer of software to automate the creation of business presentations. WestWave Capital and Emergent Ventures also invested.
Playbook Digital Inc., San Francisco, $18 million: Bain Capital Ventures led the round for this provider of a visually-enhanced cloud storage service for designers and creative professionals.
