Dott and TIER merge their equity plans and engage their employees with Ledgy

About Dott 

Founded in 2018, Dott is a micromobility company offering electric scooters and bikes for rent across 427 cities in Europe and Middle East. In 2024, TIER and Dott, the two leading European micromobility companies announced their plans to merge and now operate under the Dott brand name. 

About Rafael Rosell Taboada

Rafa joined Dott in November 2018 as the first formal HR hire at the time. Today he is the Head of People Operations, in charge of all the HR systems, processes and policies, as well as compensation and benefits, office management and payroll. He has been involved in setting up and managing Dott’s equity plans since the beginning of his time at the company.

Efficiency gains 

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Since the beginning, Dott wanted to ensure that equity was a part of their compensation structure, for every employee. As the company grew, it quickly became too complex to manage. With a large exercising window approaching, they knew they needed an equity management platform to manage this in a more automated way. “That’s when the floodgates opened and the amount of paperwork, admin and changes would have just been impossible to manage without something like Ledgy” Rafa says. 

For Rafa, the most important thing was improving his experience managing equity on his own and saving time while also increasing employee visibility into their equity. That’s when Dott chose Ledgy as their equity management platform. “Ledgy looked like a modern tool, instead of an old school system that may have all the functionality but where you don’t use 90% of the features” says Rafa. And his team was able to onboard to Ledgy easily. “When it came to our onboarding, it just worked. And once we were set up, it was smooth sailing” he says. 

He found that the most impactful feature for them at the time was Ledgy’s grant automation workflow, including the integration with their HR system, document generation and signatures. “It was a very happy flow for us as an HR team.” Rafa says. And this level of automation meant that he and his team were able to optimise their time spent on specific tasks. “On the day-to-day, we spend less than half the time on this as we used to, if not more.” he says. “Overall, we’ve made big efficiency gains when it comes to this part of compensation, which also means we have more time to work on more relevant topics rather than administrative tasks.”

Time pressure to merge 

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This year, news broke about plans for Dott and TIER, the two leading European micromobility companies, to merge, which came with lots of work behind the scenes when it came to equity. “We had huge time pressure to complete some tasks relating to equity on Ledgy in preparation for the merger. It was a lot of work for us and for the Ledgy team, who we got amazing support from throughout the process” Rafa says. 

This even led to new Ledgy features that Ledgy’s agile team delivered in record time. “During the process, we knew we couldn’t finish the work we needed without a specific new feature on Ledgy relating to the publishing of transactions. They actually built that critical feature within a couple of days to make the process so much easier for both of our teams. It was amazing, we would have been stuck without it” Rafa says. 

While Dott and TIER had two different systems to manage their employee equity plans, both companies’ equity management stayed on Ledgy after the merger. “The previous system was too inaccurate to rely on. It made sense for us to stick with Ledgy, something that we know is working and is accurate” he says. 

Their next big task was to migrate 3,000 stakeholders and even more transactions from another equity management provider to Ledgy within 45 days. This also included bringing more people from the Dott team onboard to help with the admin. “Everyone was onboarded to Ledgy in one half-hour call. They all mentioned how easy and intuitive it was to use and find what they needed - even for those who were not necessarily as familiar with equity” he says. This helped with the large amount of work that was ahead for them. "We were tasked with merging the plans from two different companies and different histories together on Ledgy, migrating 3000 stakeholders and ensuring accuracy and continuity for both companies. This migration process was super smooth and it was done in 45 days." says Rafa. 

A bigger impact on employees than expected 

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After launching Ledgy for all employees, Rafa and his team can see the difference this has made. “We didn’t know it could have such an impact on employees before. No one really saw equity or had access to it in their day to day. People would ask me directly about their vesting, it was very reactive and intransparent.”  he says. “As soon as we launched and within the last few years, people have come to me and mentioned how positive the experience of using Ledgy has been for them as an employee. They tell me it’s really smooth, it’s nice to just click and sign and be able to see everything in one dashboard.” 

Despite Rafa and his team using Ledgy to save time and reduce administrative overhead, they feel that Ledgy has had the biggest impact on the visibility and understanding of employee equity.  “Overall, I think it’s actually the employees that have gotten the most benefits from Ledgy, and they’re the ones I hear the most positive feedback from” he says. 

Future changes that make a difference

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As the company keeps growing also after the merger, Dott wants to ensure that equity is and remains important for all employees. Rafa and his team are working on creating new plans to reflect the new merged company to keep equity relevant for everyone. “We’re looking forward to inputting new plans into Ledgy and being able to show employees what’s changed for them since the merger, with the former and the new plans that we are setting up. It’s exciting to have that all in one place and available to everyone transparently” he says. 

He is also excited for Dott to continue its growth journey. “For me, it’s been amazing to see how cities have transformed, and the way people commute and enjoy them has changed since I’ve joined Dott” he says. “Seeing bike paths, scooters, and other modes of transportation in general instead of cars, become more prominent has been incredible. It’s exciting to see how we can expand this even more to other countries as well.” Rafa says. 

Read more stories about Ledgy’s customers here.