LetsVenture eyes startup hub Singapore for its ESOP management product

LetsVenture has been one of the most active platforms for startup fundraising in India since its establishment in 2013. When startups strike a verbal agreement with potential investors, LetsVenture helps them through its funding closure process by taking care of the term sheet and shareholders agreement, as well as legal and financial due diligence.

The LetsVenture team / Photo credit: LetsVenture

In addition, the company provides a platform that allows startups to get their business plans reviewed and connects them to the right mentors. It has helped more than 250 startups raise over US$190 million in total from angel investors, family offices, and micro-VC firms to date, according to the company.

In May this year, LetsVenture set up a growth platform designed to give ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices access to exclusive investment opportunities.

It’s with this foundation that the company launched its cap table and employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) management product – MyStartupEquity – in October last year. Now, it looks to take the same product to Singapore, one of the busiest startup hubs in Southeast Asia.

In the Singapore market, it will face competition from Qapita – a fintech and legal-tech firm based in the country – that similarly offers a ESOP management product for startups.

ESOPs made easy

MyStartupEquity co-founder Sanjay Jha – who is also LetsVenture’s co-founder and current chief product officer – tells Tech in Asia that while he was helping startups raise equity with the company, he saw that they had difficulty managing the sudden influx of cash. In late 2019, the team decided to take matters into their own hands.

Jha started MyStartupEquity alongside Ganesh Nayak, one of the directors for LetsVenture, and marketing head Syna Dehnugara, who joined the company in 2019 after working for over 13 years at CNBC India.

Presently, MyStartupEquity has over 90 customers from India, the US, and Singapore, including companies such as Zetwerk, Darwinbox, and Jupiter Money. For its launch in Singapore, the company said it has met all the regulatory requirements needed to manage cap tables and ESOPs in the city-state.

According to Jha, MyStartupEquity was designed to be a one-stop solution for founders, employees, investors, and VCs to manage their equity in startups. For instance, the company built a one-click feature to help founders view their fully diluted cap table at varying valuations.

Some of the platform’s other functions include a digital cap table with features for funding round and exit modeling, a customizable ESOP scheme generator, a calculator for convertible instrument management, and a secure document vault, among others.

MyStartupEquity offers the product for free for companies until they hit 100 users, which includes employees with grants and shareholders. Once firms exceed 100 users, the product will be priced at US$20 per user annually.

The need for ESOP management tools

As companies, even at the early stages, adapt to using digital tools, the co-founder expects more and more firms will be open to digitizing and managing their equity as well.

According to the exec, as equity and debt financing became more complex over the years, there’s now a “very urgent need” for a centralized management hub for a startup and its shareholders.