Issuing Equity
💼 Platform Basics
How do I create a share class?
The share classes and certificates created on Stack are representative and exist for tracking purposes. They must be paired with legal documents that authorize the creation of the new share class, purchase of shares, etc.
Adding a new share class or share certificate on Stack is not the equivalent of legally forming a new share class or signing a Stock Purchase Agreement.
Follow the purple dots to see how to add a share class.
How do I create a share certificate?
Follow the purple dots to see how to create a share certificate.
🏅 Employee Stock Options and Grants
What are the steps to grant equity to employees?
To grant options to employees, you need to:
Create an equity plan with your lawyer and upload it to Stack.
Ensure that all relevant board consents have been signed for board members.
Ensure that all relevant employees have been added to Stack.
Use the grant issuance tool to issue options to employees.
For detailed directions on each step, continue reading below.
How do I create and implement an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP)?
To create an Equity Plan, you'll need to work with legal counsel. Contact Stack if you'd like to be introduced to counsel who can help.
Once your plan has been created, you can upload it to the Stack dashboard. Go to Equity Grants > Equity Plans and click New. You'll be able to upload the actual plan document in PDF form and note the high-level terms of the plan. Note that you will need to have already created a Share Class.
After uploading the plan, you'll need to specifically label it as an Option Plan. Navigate to Equity Grants > Options (ESOP) and click New on the ESOP Plans table.
What board consents do I need for an Equity Plan? How can I create or upload them?
If your attorney already created a Board Consent for your Equity Plan, upload the Board Consent to the Plan you created in the previous step.
If you need to create and sign the board consent, make sure you've added relevant board members and employees who will be receiving the grant to the platform. You can do this by navigating to Company > Board Members and Employees > Add Employees.
To create a Board Consent, navigate to Legal > Board Consents and click New.
Attach any exhibits to the Consent (such as a 409A valuation) and click Send E-Signature Request to Board Members. Board members will get an invite to sign and approve the plan within Stack.
How do I grant options through Stack?
If your ESOP Plan is already set up according to the instructions above, you're ready to grant options to employees! Follow the purple hotspots below to see how.
🔱 Advisors
How can I issue equity to advisors?
There are many ways to issue equity to advisors. You should work with your counsel to understand how each option differs and what works best for your company.
Granting Options
To perform this step, you need to have previously created an equity plan and option pool, as well as added your advisor to the dashboard. You can follow the same steps as outlined in Employee Stock Options and Grants.
Issuing Shares
To perform this step, you need to have previously created a share class and added your advisor to to the dashboard. You can then create a share certificate for them, but note that this needs to be paired with a physical Stock Purchase Agreement.
FAST + RSA
Stack often recommends that companies sign a FAST with their advisors, and pair that with an RSA. A FAST is a great outline for how to work with an advisors. You should work with your lawyer to sign an RSA.
How can I add an advisor to the dashboard?
Follow the purple dots to see how to add an advisor. To see more details on adding and managing advisors, see the Shareholder Management section.
🎰 Configuration
How do I configure the documents behind an equity grant?
For each equity grant, you'll need a cover letter and the actual plan documents. You can set them under Equity > Configuration. Follow the purple hotspots below for a walkthrough.
🔋 Conversions
How do I convert a SAFE to shares?
Once the SPA for the investor is written and signed, you can track the conversion through Stack by following the purple dots below.
🧩 Reporting
What types of of reports can I create?
You can generate various types of excel exports from within your dashboard by navigating to Equity Grants > Reporting. Some of those reports include:
Equity Plans Overview Report: Provides an overview of your ESOP pool/s, total shares allocated, exercised, vested, etc.
ESOP Grant Vesting Report: A detailed report of all the ESOP grants with information against all the Vesting Events and the option to include cancelled vesting events.
Financial Year Vesting Report: An all-inclusive report for your year-end accounting requirements.
Surrenders Overview Report: Useful for companies with surrender policies on termination.
Other Reports: Under this, you can generate two kinds of reports. One to track the statuses of all the eSign requests / pending employee e-signs and the other to get a download of all the employee data present in the system.
🗂 Bulk Actions
Can I bulk upload grants?
AngelList Stack makes it possible for you to bulk upload multiple employee grants in a single go.
To do a bulk upload navigate to ESOP Grants and click on Bulk Upload ESOP Grants on the top right of the screen.
Download the given template excel sheet and follow the provided instructions in the sheet to fill it up. Once done, upload the completed sheet back to the Bulk Load section shown above.
You will receive a confirmation email from the system once the upload has been completed. In case the bulk upload fails, the email will also mention the reasons for the failure. Correct the errors in the sheet and try uploading again.
Can I bulk e-sign grants?
To bulk sign (on the company's behalf) multiple grants, go to Equity Programs > Bulk E-sign > New. Enter the name of the signatory with a clear picture of their signature ( in .jpg, .png, .jpeg format) with a preferred size of 200 x 60 pixels. Then, select the grants that you wish to sign and click on the Send Bulk E-sign button.
The system will now take some time to set up all the grant letters for e-signing on the backend. You will receive a confirmation email once that is complete OR you can also track the progress by looking at the column Status.
Once the e-Sign has been completed on the company's behalf, you can then use the Send All Employee Invite Email button to trigger emails to all the employees for counter-signing the grant letter.
Note: Once a bulk e-sign has been created, it cannot be deleted.
What other bulk actions can I take?
While managing employee grants, you can use a few other bulk actions like generate and delete grants, re-configure e-Sign links, and trigger multiple employee invite emails to reduce the manual effort of making individual changes. Please note that bulk actions cannot be undone.
How can I upload ESOPs in bulk?
The system automatically creates employee profiles during the bulk ESOP upload itself.
One thing to cross-check is that all the employees must have unique email IDs. It maps the grants to the existing employees using the email addresses.
In case no employee exists in the system against one of the provided emails in the excel sheet, the system automatically creates a new employee profile against the same.
How can I bulk upload already executed grants?
You can create these grants yourself using the Bulk Upload feature. Make sure that you mark the Grant Executed? field in the Excel sheet as True.
The executed documents for these grants can only be uploaded individually from within the dashboard.
To have them uploaded in one go, you'll have to share the PDF or Word Docs with us, preferably in a .zip folder. These files should have the Grant ID in the file names for us to be able to map them against the correct grants in the system.
🖊 Inviting Shareholders
How can I invite shareholders to whom I've issued equity?
For step-by-step instructions on inviting Shareholders, go to our Shareholder Management page.
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