Inspired by Silicon Valley, Ledgy Wants to Help Others Give Equity to Employees

The fintech startup Ledgy and the law firms Kellerhals Carrard, Wenger & Vieli and LEXR partner up to help Swiss startups give out equity to their employees.

According to a recent study by Index Ventures, European startup employees own half of the amount US employees own of their companies in terms of equity. This could be one of the main reasons why Europe has not yet seen any tech giant on the scale of Google or Amazon.

To change that, Ledgy already supports startups with the management of employee equity and today, together with Kellerhals Carrard as the main partner, Ledgy introduced free downloadable templates for an employee stock option plan (ESOP) and for a phantom stock option plan (PSOP) to their users.

Furthermore, Ledgy helps founders understand the necessary steps and decisions to take to set up such a plan with educational resources on its website and guidance in the documents. Unlike in the past, founders can now access high-quality templates from law firms with many years of experience in the start-up sector quickly and free of charge.

As Yoko Spirig, Ledgy’s co-founder, says,

“We are convinced that the templates will be a great help for a lot of founders and we are very proud that already hundreds of startups are using our service. However, a founder might still want to consult an expert on key questions since the plan will stick with your company for several years and no template is tailored to your specific needs.”

This is where the law firms jump in. Based on their experience with different plans and startups, they are ideally placed to help founders navigate this area.

Karim Maizar

Karim Maizar, partner and head of Kellerhals Carrard’s startup desk adds,

“Participation plans are a key feature that investors ultimately expect from growth-oriented startups. Setting the incentives in the right way, can greatly add to the overall value of the startup.”

Ledgy sees this topic as a great symbiosis between its software and lawyers. Thanks to the partners Kellerhals Carrard, Wenger & Vieli and Lexr, Ledgy can boost the success of the Swiss startup ecosystem even more.

Every founder can create a free company account on Ledgy.com to start learning about how to best make their employees part of their success. To participate in a webinar about the topic co-hosted by Ledgy and Kellerhals Carrard on June 4  2019, you can sign up here.

Featured image credit:Screenshot via Kellerhals Carrard’s Youtube