How DeepL manages their equity at scale with Ledgy as their single source of truth
"With Ledgy we can manage our equity at scale from one source of truth that we know is accurate. It works for us and our employees, but also for our auditors."
About DeepL
Founded in 2017, DeepL is an AI-based language translation technology that quickly beat Google and others in quality benchmarks. Providing both written and spoken language translation capabilities, DeepL gained popularity and is now used by over 100’000 businesses and organisations, and millions of individuals worldwide.
About Markus Harder and Demi Curran
Markus Harder is DeepL’s CFO. He joined in 2021 and is responsible for overseeing the company’s overall finance and internal operations, including the company’s virtual stock option program.
Demi Curran is a Share Options Specialist at DeepL. Having joined the rewards team in May 2024, Demi is responsible for managing DeepL’s VSOP scheme, the strategy behind their awards, enabling employees and collaborating with the finance team and other stakeholders on equity-related matters.
Easy onboarding to a European solution
{{quote-1}}
DeepL started using Ledgy to manage their virtual stock options in 2022 when a growing team and increasing equity complexity made it clear that a solution like Ledgy was needed. Compared to other equity management software, Ledgy stood out as the best provider for DeepL. “We liked that Ledgy was European, could cater to virtual shares with a conversion ratio to real shares, and their connectivity to our HRIS.” Markus says.
While there was a large volume of data and documents to import into the Ledgy platform to get started, the onboarding process went smoothly for DeepL. “There was a lot of cleanup that needed to be done in parallel to implementing a new system and then being able to issue new grants. I put a ton of work on our CX Manager because I didn’t have a lot of time for this, which was very helpful.” says Markus.
Demi, who joined later, once Ledgy was already implemented, also needed to be onboarded to the platform herself. That process was also straightforward. “It’s a really intuitive system. I had a couple of training sessions with our CX Manager and the Ledgy help centre is so complete it has everything I need for every single piece of admin work I need to do. It was really easy to start using Ledgy.” she says.
An automated and flexible single source of truth
{{quote-2}}
For Demi and Markus, being able to work from an accurate system of record like Ledgy has been a key advantage from the start. “With Ledgy we can manage our equity at scale from one source of truth that we know is accurate.” says Markus “It works for us and our employees, but also for our auditors. We’ve given them access to Ledgy so they can easily find what they need and trust that there isn’t anything outside of Ledgy. They can then do a lot of the validations themselves.” he continues. Demi describes how this was possible thanks to specific Ledgy features: “The ability to customise the type of access different people with different roles have is great. We can limit access and can still collaborate in the system while taking care of different areas, but all drawing from the same source of truth.”
For Demi who has previously worked with and at other equity management providers, Ledgy has also been a nice change of pace. “I think it’s great how customisable and flexible Ledgy is. When it comes to running reports on demand, I get them instantly. I'm not waiting for a team to provide it or to get it in my email.” says Demi. “If I need any other information in the report I can get it. I like that I’m not waiting and I can just get on with things.”
She also saves time when it comes to the initial granting process, which can be cumbersome with such a large and growing team. “We're able to automate much of the granting process with new joiners added via our HRIS, and we can also generate documents automatically and send them out for signature with the DocuSign integration. This used to take me a really long time at previous jobs, but here it’s much quicker. It’s also really easy for me to keep track of which documents still need signing.” says Demi.
Fostering employee trust
{{quote-3}}
When it comes to DeepL employees, Markus and Demi have also seen higher engagement and enjoy using Ledgy to communicate with them. "Ledgy functions as a communication tool back to the employees. If they want to see what their equity is worth or access their documents, they can use Ledgy and it creates trust and transparency which they love. Before, with just a contract sitting in their inbox, they would attribute less value to that stock option package." says Markus.
Demi, who oversees the granting process also sees the impact this has had on employees. "People are becoming more engaged with their awards and new joiners are always really keen to get access to Ledgy, which shows that people are talking about it." she says.
Overall, employees are happy with Ledgy, and DeepL appreciates the trust and engagement this has fostered with them. “Being able to access their equity and documents in Ledgy gives employees confidence that DeepL has their interests in mind. It reflects back positively on us as a company because the Ledgy platform works so well." says Markus.
Working towards the future - together
{{quote-4}}
As DeepL continues to grow and encounter new equity-related challenges, they are glad to have a platform and team like Ledgy on their side. “What I especially like about Ledgy is that the product is developing in the direction we want and need it to. Knowing that the Ledgy team is working towards helping us accomplish our goals is great.” says Markus.
Read more stories about Ledgy’s customers here.
