Equity management for start-ups made easy

Most start-ups cannot match the high wages of tech giants. To attract the best talent, they offer something even more valuable: capital. With a handful of employees, an overview of the equity can still be managed manually, but as start-ups scale up and more and more people and investors come on board - possibly at a global level - things quickly become complicated.

In 2017, Yoko Spirig and her colleagues Ben Brandt and Timo Horstschaefer founded Ledgy after graduating from ETH Zurich. Their goal was to reduce the many administrative hurdles associated with equity management and investor relationship. Ledgy offers a platform that helps companies manage their assets. To do this, it bundles equity plans, investor relationship and employee stock ownership plans on one platform. The solution is sold as a software-as-a-service in a subscription model and currently has more than 2,500 customers worldwide, including Wefox, Bitpanda and Frontify.

Ledgy's solution is also used by investors and investment companies. Several portfolios can be managed in just a few clicks via a single platform, providing a full picture of each fund's performance and to stimulate financing rounds and exit scenarios.

According to an interview with co-founder Yoko Spirig, the initial idea for the company came to her during a long train ride through Siberia. The business idea took concrete shape during an exchange with the creators of Doodle. The founders of the well-known calendar service were on board as mentors from the beginning and are still among the investors today. Ledgy addressed problems that also affect Doodle and every other start-up: they all have to deal with an ever-growing network of employees and shareholders, and to maintain and organise this relationship.

Ledgy currently operates in Switzerland, Germany and the UK. Offices will soon be opened in other European countries, and subsequently also in the US. Ledgy's expansion from 20 to around 60 employees last year and its third rank at this year’s edition of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award proves that the Zurich-based start-up is on the right track. To ensure even more effective marketing of its equity management platform, Yoko Spirig and her team raised an additional USD 22 million in a recently completed series B financing round.

That the company is in safe hands is also evident from the fact that its head office is in the newly built corporate headquarters of Zurich-based On Running, the innovative and now publicly traded Swiss shoe manufacturer. All signs are that Ledgy stands a good chance of being as successful.