Ledgy helps Modern Milkman engage their employees through ownership

About Modern Milkman

After founder, Simon Mellin, watched Blue Planet and heard David Attenborough highlight the plastic waste crisis, he decided to do something about it. What started as a local milk round in Lancashire, quickly expanded to become a sustainable grocery service available all around the UK. Founded in 2018, Modern Milkman has raised £50 million in external investment and recently closed a crowdfunding round in 2022 to further expand its reach. So far, they’ve been able to save 60 million bottles from landfills, all with the help of their customers and community, and they hope to continue on their mission to conserve the Earth’s natural resources.

About Alisha

Alisha Seahra grew up with milk rounds as a regular occurrence at her grandmother’s house, so she was excited to see them being brought back in a new way while being able to contribute to a mission she cared about. She joined Modern Milkman as a Senior Paralegal in March 2022, as the second member of the legal team, working alongside Legal Director Kenzo Onumonu. Together, they work on everything needed on the legal side of Modern Milkman, and one of Alisha’s first projects was taking charge of the implementation of Ledgy.

A modern solution for Modern Milkman

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Before 2022, the Modern Milkman team mostly handled employee equity and their cap table separately, relying on a combination of another equity management software and spreadsheets to manage their equity. This meant that duplicates and different versions of spreadsheets were shared and updated, allowing the possibility for human error.

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CFO, Lambro Anastasiou and Legal Director, Kenzo Onumonu, made the initial decision to find a different solution for their equity management. “We needed a solution that allowed for seamless management of our equity incentives and which solved the manual processes we were using. Our employees really appreciate a visual representation of their equity.” says Kenzo (Legal Director at Modern Milkman) about the decision.

Now, the Modern Milkman team uses one platform, Ledgy, to manage all their equity, including an EMI scheme and an unapproved scheme. “We use Ledgy for a range of things and even though I am not an expert, I’ve enjoyed getting it up and running and helping others learn what it’s about.” says Alisha.

An easy switch

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Coming from a corporate background, Alisha had little experience with employee equity, share schemes, and options. When she joined Modern Milkman after the decision to switch to Ledgy had been made, she took charge of the implementation of Ledgy, which was made easier by Ledgy’s team and easy-to-use platform. “I was learning about equity share schemes at the same time we were implementing the software. Being able to lean on the Ledgy team during the migration was a great help.” says Alisha.

Given their previous setup, Modern Milkman’s data was spread across many different sources and had to be consolidated to make Ledgy their single source of truth. “We came down to the nitty gritty details of equity and at one point we even gave the Ledgy team many pages documenting our share transfers. They took care of almost everything for us because we didn’t have the time.” says Alisha. "The Ledgy team did much of the work instead of it being up to us alone. We wouldn’t have been able to do it in the time that we did if it wasn’t for them." she continued.

Engaging a community through ownership

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At the end of 2022, Modern Milkman finished off a successful crowdfunding round aimed at engaging an entire community around their mission and involving them further in working towards a shared goal to help the planet. This philosophy also extends to their team who has been able to use Ledgy to better understand their equity. “Before Ledgy, employees struggled to understand the equity they held or what that meant for them.” says Alisha.

With Ledgy, equity has become more approachable for the entire team, and Alisha has put systems in place to make sure it remains that way. “Now, when we grant equity to employees through Ledgy, we not only generate and share their grant documents, we also automatically share a FAQ page through the employee dashboard that’s available to them any time they log in. This makes the specifics of their equity even clearer, and avoids them having to come to the legal team with popular questions.” says Alisha.

“Ledgy has really helped shape people’s understanding of what options are overall and what that means for them. They now see they own part of the company so they can grow with the company.” says Alisha. In addition, Ledgy’s team has continued to find ways to improve the employee experience. “Looking at the new and improved employee dashboard, I was quite impressed as it seems to have everything we need and more. I think we might not need our FAQ page anymore.” says Alisha.

Working together toward the future

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Since the move to Ledgy, planning for the future has been much easier for the Modern Milkman team. When it comes to Modern Milkman’s fundraising and crowdfunding rounds, Alisha easily uses Ledgy to keep the cap table up to date, and with that, the finance team can keep track of and report any changes in dilution as well as model how future rounds might affect it.
When it comes to planning future grants, Alisha also finds Ledgy to be a helpful time-saver. “I think without Ledgy, I’d probably have to dedicate an extra day or so to updating the spreadsheets and notifying relevant people - not to mention the extra time it would take to issue grants manually. Ledgy really helps with speed, ease, and compliance of it all, everything is just much smoother.” says Alisha.

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Modern Milkman has ambitious goals for the future, expanding and bringing their services to more people as they grow. Moving forward, Ledgy will continue to be an integral part of Modern Milkman’s process as it facilitates work across the legal and finance departments to ensure everything is up to date and to keep shareholders and employees informed about their holdings.

Modern Milkman is working towards a better future for our planet, and the Ledgy team is glad to support them in a mission that’s so important to us as well.

Read more stories about Ledgy’s customers here. And learn more about Ledgy’s sustainability efforts, here.

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