Altman-backed startup JPMorgan announces equity loan partnership with Amazon

Slope, a lending startup that uses artificial intelligence to screen businesses, is a partner Amazon starting Tuesday to provide a reusable line of credit to Amazon sellers, backed by a JPMorgan Chase credit facility, the company told CNBC exclusively.

The new relationship means eligible US Amazon sellers can apply for and access equity directly through their Amazon Seller accounts with real-time approval.

Slope was co-founded by CEO Lawrence Lin Murata, who said he saw the ups and downs of running a small business while growing up in São Paulo.

Lin Murata helped his parents in their family toy business, which they have been running for more than three decades. As he gained more insight into the business’s finances, he said he realized cash flow was a big problem for his parents and other small businesses.

This led him to found Slope, an AI-powered lending platform backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and JPMorgan Chase with co-founder Alice Deng.

“Using artificial intelligence, we are able to underwrite these businesses and we are able to handle all the complexity of business risk assessment,” said Lin Murata. “At the same time (we’re giving them) a very easy real-time experience.”

The lines of credit will start at 8.99% APR, according to Slope, and require sellers to be in business for at least one year with more than $100,000 in annual revenue. Once approved, Amazon sellers can draw from the line as needed, choosing a term ranging from three months to a year to align repayment with their inventory cycle. Slope did not disclose the financial aspects of its deal with Amazon.

“Most people don’t realize that sellers, independent sellers, are kind of the backbone of Amazon and e-commerce in general,” Deng told CNBC. “More than 60% of Amazon’s sales are driven by independent sellers.”

Deng said Slope is filling a gap with the new partnership. Currently, Amazon sellers can use some third parties to access capital, though Deng said those initiatives are more focused on smaller sellers, while Slope focuses on mature sellers, some of which are in the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and require bank-level financing.

Deng said that when Amazon made its own loans four years ago, the total addressable market was between $1 billion and $2 billion. After taking over the Slope program, the company expects that number to grow.

“We are excited about our collaboration with Slope, which expands the financial tools available to Amazon’s selling partners,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “Whether they’re starting out or looking to grow, access to sufficient capital is a critical need for small business owners, and we’re constantly evaluating new ways to enable sellers to thrive on Amazon.”

With Slope’s new deal, sellers can take minutes directly on Amazon Seller Central to apply for capital and be approved almost instantly, using Amazon’s own performance data and Slope’s own large language model, Lin Murata said.

“That’s one of the reasons we’re able to provide a more compelling offer than if you were outside of the Amazon dashboard,” said Lin Murata. “And then we make decisions in real time, so we analyze Amazon’s performance, data and cash flow in real time.”

It’s a process that Slope’s co-founders said is easier, faster and more integrated than having to apply for loans from banks as a small business. With the granular data Amazon provides, such as a breakdown of sales by product, they said the AI ​​model is able to make more informed financing decisions than a bank would based on aggregate financial documents.

With the new deal, Amazon joins the growing number of Slope customers it already counts Samsung, AlibabaIkea and others.

Deng and Lin Murata said the company tested the new Amazon integration, and although the trial had only been active for a few weeks, the pair said they saw significant demand and a 300% week-over-week increase in applications.

“Going back to my parents’ initial inspiration, I think we want to be the credit reporting layer for these businesses,” said Lin Murata. “Ultimately, what we’re really doing is helping these businesses grow by giving them fair, affordable, fast and very easy access to different forms of financing.”