How Motorway uses Ledgy to make their equity work
“Ledgy feels like an upgrade of the entire experience for the teams responsible for managing equity as well as for our employees.”
About Motorway
Founded in 2017, Motorway is the UK’s fastest growing used car marketplace. Harnessing the power of technology to deliver a positive car-selling experience, Motorway has brought a historically offline industry online, to build a better car market for everyone. Motorway enables their customers to sell their cars in less than 24 hours and today, they’ve helped more than 250,000 people sell their car.
About Bianca
Bianca Stewart is Head of Legal at Motorway. After joining in November 2021, around the time Motorway announced its $190 million Series C round, she formally set up the legal function at Motorway and built out a team. A corporate lawyer by training, Bianca’s responsibilities have expanded to include fundraising, investor relations, equity administration and more.
Creating a single source of truth for equity
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When Bianca joined Motorway, it wasn’t long before she had to rethink the company’s approach to equity. No longer eligible for EMI plans, Motorway needed to evolve their equity schemes to scale with the company. At the time, they were using a US-based platform that required a lot of administrative overhead. “We lacked confidence in our previous provider because its functionalities were very US-focused. As a UK company, we couldn’t get to where we needed and were spending too much time on manual workarounds.” Bianca says.
While administering Motorway’s equity, she quickly realised that even with an equity management system in place, her team was dependent on many different spreadsheets and documents that needed constant manual updating. They also had to manage two different sets of share certificates which caused a lot of confusion in her team and with stakeholders. “With our previous provider, we ended up having a version of the truth with loads of alternative manual versions.” says Bianca.
After spending about a week drafting 80 option agreements, sending them out for signature and monitoring their progress manually, Bianca decided it was time to make a switch. “It was a nightmare, and that’s when I knew I had to be proactive in finding a better solution.” says Bianca. “For equity to be done well, it has to be foolproof. We wanted to make equity as self-serve as possible, and automate processes in a way that actually works for us. We felt that Ledgy could become that single source of truth.”
A trustworthy partner
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Following the decision to switch to Ledgy, Bianca started seeing benefits right away. Ledgy seamlessly handles Motorway’s various equity plans including historic and complex vesting schedules. “Our previous provider couldn’t move at the speed that we wanted them to, or cater to a UK company’s needs,” Bianca says. “Equity administration can go so wrong. For us, success means it’s working perfectly and quietly in the background. I was confident that we could get there with Ledgy.”
In addition, she’s felt supported every step of the way. “My biggest fear was the migration process, but from the beginning I felt a lot of trust with the Ledgy team and they ensured that the migration went smoothly.” says Bianca. She adds: “Our previous software had very impractical support hours and with Ledgy there’s always someone available when we need them.”
“Since signing with Ledgy, it’s been proven time and time again that the team, and especially the product team, really engages with customers to find ways to improve. I’ve had two-way conversations about how Ledgy can make my life easier. It shows that Ledgy is really focused on building a customer-centric product.” Bianca says.
Saving time and staying accurate
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Since switching to Ledgy, Motorway has carried out a number of equity grants for Motorway employees quickly and easily. “Being able to automatically create documents in bulk has been a game changer for us in terms of time-saving and accuracy. I’m confident that nothing will go wrong.” Bianca says.
Before moving to Ledgy, Motorway would spend over a week, twice a year administering new grants. With Ledgy, this time will be significantly reduced. “Going forward, one batch granting process – creating documents, getting signatures and updating the cap table – used to take me over a week. We can now generate and send out documents for signature in half a day” says Bianca.
Bianca is looking forward to more effectively engaging employees with equity. “From an equity admin perspective, we’ve saved loads of time, we’re now confident in the accuracy of the data, and there’s a bit of a buzz around it in the company as well,” says Bianca. “The employee dashboard was important in helping to encourage the wider business to engage with Ledgy. The fact that it’s all customisable and you can create scenarios for employees to play with brings equity to life and makes it tangible for our employees.”
Much to look forward to
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As Motorway continues to grow, Bianca expects to expand the use of Ledgy out from the legal team to be used by the people team. “I’m looking forward to the legal, finance and people teams having a single source of truth for everything equity related, and feeling confident about using Ledgy,” says Bianca. “With our previous system, it felt like we were forcing it to work, whereas Ledgy feels like an upgrade of the entire experience for the teams responsible for managing equity and hopefully for our employees as well.”
Read more stories about Ledgy’s customers here.
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