The capital engine behind every platform.
The $10B opportunity hiding inside Canada's platforms
Our Mission
We fuel small business growth
The Problem
An Etsy seller wants to grow their shop.
Seller
Without capital, they can't stock up or run ads. The shop sells less. Etsy makes less.
Seller
If Etsy could offer capital, both grow.
Unique Insight
Canada's platforms are sitting on the richest SME data.
That data makes them the perfect new distribution channel for capital — trusted by sellers, more efficient than banks, and impossible for existing fintech lenders to replicate.
The Power of Credit
Credit supercharges the platform growth flywheel.
Every platform wants to offer credit, but alone, they crash on execution.
Growth
Sellers Grow Faster
More capital
Retention Skyrockets
Platforms Earn More
The DIY Nightmare
Want to build lending yourself? Here's your Roadmap
Every platform thinks they can do it. Every platform suffers the same fate. Even Shopify relies on 3rd party for lending.
Research & Planning
Team Building
Banking Partners
Tech Build
Compliance
Underwriting Models
Launch & Scale
2-3 MONTHS
Regulatory maze
Legal consultants
Market analysis
Board convincing
3-4 MONTHS
15+ new hires
$2M+ salaries
Risk officers
Underwriters needed
4-5 MONTHS
20+ rejections
Debt facility
Due diligence
Terms negotiation
4-6 MONTHS
Decision engine
API integrations
Loan management system
Payment processing
3-4 MONTHS
KYC/AML systems
Provincial licenses
FINTRAC setup
Integration chaos
3-4 MONTHS
Model tuning
Default management
Collections setup
Never-ending costs
ONGOING
Constant iterations
Collections setup
Default management
Never-ending costs
Solution
Slate unlocks embedded lending in Canada
Platforms spend 6+ months and $500K+ to launch lending. Slate helps a platform launch in 24 hours.
Slate has 3 core products
We handle: Bank partner, Underwriting,
Servicing, Compliance & Risk Management.
Platforms
The Platform handles: Distribution, Customer Experience & Core Product.
Widgets
APIs
Ready to Launch
How It Works
Launch 'Shopify Capital' tomorrow, not next year.
Platforms no longer need bank partnerships, compliance teams & underwriting models - just plug us in and start fueling your customers growth with capital in days. Slate leverages our partners debt facility to extend capital.
Borrowers
Platform customers like
- Gig workers
- Online Shop owners (like Etsy, Shopify)
- Restaurant Owners
Platforms
Platform like
- Uber
- Etsy
- Jobber
- Touchbistro
Underwriting
Compliance
Customer Support
Program Manager
Slate can help you with
- Underwriting
- Compliance
- Customer Support
- API's
Bank
Partner Bank/Lender
Bank Lender like
- Peoples Trust
- Meridian
- Cypress Hills
- Merchant Opp Fund
Partners
Partners can track progress of capital programs on Slate dashboard, or pull data via API into their own systems
Offer
Product experience for small businesses
Slate leverages our partners debt facility to extend capital. Seller is already underwritten and sees the offer in their dashboard
Get Up to $30,000
Your business is pre-approved for $30,000 in working capital
Loan
Slate unlocks embedded lending in Canada
Platforms spend 6+ months and $500K+ to launch lending. Slate helps a platform launch in 24 hours.
Product Offer
Slate continuously underwrites
Slate underwrites the entire customer base of a platform using real-time sales and payments data, powered by AI-driven risk models.
This lets us approve borrowers before they even ask
Allowing us targeting qualified businesses instead of chasing desperate ones with ads.
And because SMEs trust the platforms they run their business on more than banks or alternative lenders,
Slate turns platform trust into seamless, scalable lending
The Team
Meet Scott & Devin
Scott Elliot
10+ Years Across Banks + Fintechs
Co-Founder & CEO
superpower
Turns regulation into competitive moat. A decade of building risk engines across banks and fintechs → knows every step from bank → fintech → hyperscale.
$50M debt facility. Scaled lending ops from $1M → $15M ARR. Negotiated bank partnerships + regulatory engagement
Led Canada expansion. Structured compliance frameworks. Supported U.S. MTL licensing. Closed major B2B platform deals.
Grounded in bank-grade risk + bsa/aml
Scaled compliance + onboarding for thousands of startups. Built the systems that let fintechs move fast without breaking.
Devin Picciolini
10+ Years Launching and Building Digital Products
Co-Founder & CTO
superpower
Turns rejection walls into revenue engines. A 0→1 product leader who knows how to find the pain, hack the workaround, and build the scalable solution.
Led Product for Risk, Compliance & Cards. Issued $50M+ credit, scaled to $15–20M monthly spend, grew customers 200 → 5,000+. Lived the pain that became Slate.
Built & exited a healthtech platform with 25K users and $6.5M+ payments processed.
Product ops at Instagram, scaling ML + infra tools adopted across global teams.
Case Study
We've Done This Before. Now We're Making It Scalable
We built a lending engine at a leading Canadian fintech. 6 months, 15 hires, $500K+. That pain = why Slate exists.
We lived this firsthand
- Core product needed growth → customers needed capital
- Looked for a plug-and-play solution → it didn't exist
- The only option was to build it ourselves
- Chasing borrowers leads to high CAC & poor credit quality.
What we learned
- Lending isn't a feature, its an entire business.
- Most platforms can't afford 6 months, 15 hires, and $500K+ just to get started.
- Just like payments before Stripe, it makes no sense for every platform to reinvent lending.
- U.S. playbooks fail in Canada, borrower behavior + credit profiles are unique to Canada.
- Platforms can cherry-pick the strongest SMEs, Real-time data + loyalty = approve before they even ask.
Business Model
We don't just monetize once. We monetize forever.
Every partner becomes a compounding engine: Setup + ARR + Loan Volume + Servicing → Stickiness → More Partners
$0 - $100K
Setup Fee (enterprise pays, startups free)
15%+
of every loan originated. $1B loan volume = $150M revenue potential
$1M+
per partner LTV
Choose your path
No Engineering
- Pre-approval emails to merchants
- Hosted application flow
- Slate-branded experience
Drop-In Components
- Banner in Helcim dashboard
- White-labeled iframe
- Co-branded experience
Full API
- Native capital experience
- Full white-label
- Custom underwriting data
The Helcim opportunity
The embedded capital wave is here
of Canadian SMEs face ongoing cash flow challenges
originated by Square Loans alone in 2024
higher spend per visit for embedded lending users
50/50 spread share
How Helcim Earns
Projected annual revenue
720 funded merchants x $18K x 2.5 cycles x 10%
Slate Handles Everything
All capital on Slate’s balance sheet
No credit exposure for Helcim
Underwriting & risk assessment
Using Helcim transaction data
Servicing, collections, compliance
Fully managed by Slate
Live in
4 weeks
Launch
- Pre-approval emails sent
- Hosted application flow live
- Revenue starts day 1
Embed
- Banner in Helcim dashboard
- White-labeled iframe
- Co-branded merchant UX
Optimize
- Analyze conversion data
- Tune eligibility criteria
- Expand offer placement
Scale
- Full merchant rollout
- Performance dashboard
- Plan Phase 2 (Full API)
Let's build this together
Confidential · February 2026
Ready to get onboard?
scott@tryslatehq.com
tryslatehq.com