Issuing Equity

Platform Basics

Adding a new share class or security on AngelList Equity is not the equivalent of legally forming a new share class or legally issuing equity. Make sure you’ve taken the legal steps to create a share class and issue equity before recording them in AngelList Equity.

Navigate to Equity > Configuration > Share Classes:

Click an existing share class to edit it, or click Add in the top right to create a new share class:

Select the share class you need to amend/modify, then visit the Amendments tab:

Amending a share class on AngelList Equity is not the equivalent of legally amending a share class. Make sure you’ve taken the legal steps to amend a share class before recording them in AngelList Equity.

Before you can record an amendment to a share class in AngelList Equity, you will need to have the filed Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation on hand to upload. If you don’t have this document, contact your legal team:

How do I add stakeholders?

Navigate to Equity > Stakeholders and click on Add. You can choose to add stakeholders one at a time or as a bulk upload.

To add one shareholder at a time, select Add Stakeholder and complete the form:

Once the shareholder has been added, you can upload shared documents, preview their dashboard, and send them an invite email. Navigate to Equity > Securities > Shares and click Add on the top right. You can choose to add one share at a time or add multiple shares via a bulk upload.

Fill out the form with the necessary information and upload the certificate documents at the bottom.

If this is a share certificate that has not yet been issued, click into the share and select Issue (in the gray box). This will invite the shareholder to review and sign their share certificate. The equity admin will be able to countersign, after which point the shares will be active and reflected on the cap table. The share certificate will also be available for view in the shareholder dashboard.

How do I add convertible investment documents?

To upload previously signed SAFEs or other convertible investments, add all your investors as stakeholders (both individuals and entities) then navigate to Equity > Securities > Convertibles.

Fill out the form with the necessary information and upload relevant documents.

For issuing future SAFEs, check out the on-platform SAFE generator.

Granting Equity Awards from your Equity Plan

You should consult legal counsel before creating an equity plan or an option pool.If you need an introduction to a trusted attorney, let us know at startups@angellist.com.

What to do before I can grant equity awards from an equity plan?

Before you can grant equity awards, you first need to:

Create an equity plan with your lawyer and add it to AngelList.
Ensure that all relevant board consents have been signed by board members.
If necessary, obtain a 409A valuation, which you can do from the Valuations page (for Growth, Growth +, and Scale Plan customers).
Ensure that all stakeholders have been added to AngelList.
Configure your grant document templates so that your grant agreements are automatically generated.

For detailed directions on each step, continue reading below.

How do I create an Equity Plan and configure it in AngelList Equity?

To legally form/file an Equity Plan, you’ll need to work with legal counsel. If you need an introduction to a trusted attorney, let us know at startups@angellist.com. Once your law firm has finished creating your equity plan and the associated share class is configured, you can set up your equity plan in AngelList Equity.

What board consents do I need for an Equity Plan? How can I create or upload them?

If your attorney already created a Board Consent for your Equity Plan, upload the Board Consent by navigating to Legal > Board Consents. You can Loop in law firm or add it by clicking Add > Upload executed consent. Before creating a Board Consent, make sure you’ve added the relevant board members who will be signing and the relevant employees and advisors who will be receiving grants on the platform. To create a Board Consent, navigate to Legal > Board Consents and click New Board Consent > Generate using template. Fill out the form with necessary information and click Create draft.

To add details, first click Add to attach any necessary documents (like a 409A valuation). Then input the details of the exhibit and click Create. Once all exhibits are added, click Confirm Exhibits to move on to the next step.

After adding the exhibits, you can have your law firm review them by clicking Request, which sends a direct message to your legal team. Alternatively, you can pass this review by selecting skip The final step invites your board members to sign the consent. First, ensure the correct signers are listed by selecting Edit Signers on the draft page. Then, click Invite and optionally add a message for your board members. They will receive an immediate email notification to log in to AngelList and approve the Board Consent.

Once all board members have signed the consent, the administrative team will receive an email notification confirming the approval. The document’s effective date and signatures will be automatically added to the signature page, which the company admins can then download.

How do I record option grants that were previously executed?

Navigate to the Options tab, then click Add. You can add one or multiple at a time. Be sure to attach the grant agreements.

Steps to granting equity awards from the equity plan

Reminder: configure your grant document templates before granting equity from your equity plan to ensure documents generate and are ready for signature.

Step 1: Draft the equity awards

AngelList Equity enables you to draft and execute options or restricted stock (commonly referred to as “RSAs”, short for “Restricted Stock Awards”) from your equity plan. To grant options, navigate to Equity > Securities > Options. Click Add and select Add Equity Award. You can add multiple equity awards by selecting that option in the dropdown.

Fill out the form with the necessary information. Note - each equity award must be linked to a grant document template in order to draft the grant letters/agreements. Do this by selecting Grant status and choosing the appropriate document from the dropdown.

Repeat until all your drafts are prepared. As you draft an option/RSAs, you’ll see a step for “Board Approval”. The company signatory won’t be able to sign the grant until one of the following is true for each grant:

There is an attached fully executed board consent.
You choose to override this requirement by adding the effective date of the board consent.

You can upload a consent that is executed offline via your law firm. Or AngelList Equity supports the generation and e-signing of board consents for options/RSAs. Navigate to Documents & Legal > Board Consents to get started. Then click Add > Generate using template:

Once you create the draft board consent, add the draft equity awards to the consent’s exhibit:

After saving, you can preview and download the auto-generated consent PDF:

Once the consent is ready, you can invite your law firm to review the consent prior to inviting the board members to sign the consent:

The law firm team member you choose will receive an email, requesting their review

The law firm team member of your choice can download the PDF, then one-click approve:

The law firm’s approval does not automatically send the draft consent to board members for their signature. Either the law firm or the company admin must then invite the board to sign here:

The board members will receive an email to review and sign:

After all board members have signed, the state of the consent will update to “Executed”:

Executing a board consent for equity awards applies the effective date of the board consent to all equity awards as the grant date. The equity awards are not automatically signed by the company when the board consent is executed.

Step 3: Executing agreements

To execute the equity award agreements, nagivate to Equity > Securities > Options. All board approved equity awards that are ready for company signature will be visible here:

Click “Bulk sign”, then follow the steps to either sign the grants (if you are the company signatory) or invite the signatory to sign:

By default, once the company signs, the equity award recipients will automatically receive email invitations to countersign. Optionally, the company can choose to not automatically send stakeholders invitations to countersign. To resend / remind stakeholders to sign, click “Invite to sign” under Pending Stakeholder:

Once both the company and the stakeholder have signed the award agreement, the award will have an Outstanding status.

What is a stock certificate, and why does it exist?

Certificates look like this:

In addition to certificates, you still need the Stock Purchase Agreement (SPA), which must be drafted by your law firm. They come in a variety of forms, but they have characteristics like these:

The reason why certificates exist: Before cap table software existed, companies kept physical share certificates in filing cabinets. When cap table software arrived, companies and their stakeholders were accustomed to having these share certificates, so you can use AngelList Equity to generate these certificates. Many companies have stopped generating them and have adopted one one of these issuance methods. Contact your law firm to confirm what your company’s legal documents permit.

How can I issue stock certificates?

This feature is only available for US companies on AngelList. To issue certificated stock, first specify the signatories for your company by navigating to Legal > Signatories. Note - signatories must be users with cap table management permissions for your company. Once you have specified signatories, initiate the issuance on the share page (Equity > Securities > Shares) by selecting the share you’d like to issue, and clicking the Issue button in the grey box.

Confirm the shareholder details and choose “Certificated Stock Issuance” as the issuance method.

This will send an email to the signatories to authorize the share certificate. Once the primary signatory (and if necessary, the secondary signatory) signs, the shareholder will receive an email to accept their share certificate.

What are other options for stock issuance, if I don’t want certificated stock?

AngelList offers 3 additional options for issuing stock:

Certificate Free Stock Issuance- this method will notify the holder via email and they will confirm their receipt of a notice of issuance, but they will not receive a digital certificate.
Book Entry Only- this method will not email the holder and will not create a notice of issuance or a digital certificate.
Only Send Invite to Shareholder- this method will not create a notice of issuance, or a certificate, but will invite the holder to access their dashboard where they can view/track their equity.

If you have many share certificates to issue, you can issue them in bulk by selecting multiple and then selecting “Actions”. Read more about bulk issuance here.

Advisors

Note: There are many ways to issue equity to advisors. You should work with your counsel to understand how each option differs and what works best for your company.

Granting Options

Before granting options, you need to have previously created an equity plan and option pool. Once you’ve added your advisor as a Stakeholder, follow the same steps as outlined in Employee Stock Options and Grants.

Issuing Shares

To perform this step, you need to have previously created a share class and added your advisor to the dashboard. You can then create a share certificate. Note that issuing shares typically is done with a Stock Purchase Agreement or RSA from your plan.

FAST + Restricted Stock Award (RSA)

Many early-stage companies use an agreement like the FAST with their advisors and pair that with an RSA grant. The FAST provides an outline of typical advisor agreement and terms for early-stage companies.

Bulk Actions

Can I bulk upload grants?

AngelList makes it possible for you to bulk upload multiple employee grants in a single go. First, add the stakeholders:

For option holders, add Service Providers
For share recipients, add Shareholders.

Navigate to Equity > Securities > Equity Awards. Click Add New and select Add Multiple Equity Awards.

Use the template provided or manually enter your data in the table provided.

Can I bulk e-sign grants?

Yes! Check out this detailed guide.

What other bulk actions can I take?

While managing employee grants, you can use a few other bulk actions like generate and delete grants, re-configure e-Sign links, and trigger multiple employee invite emails to reduce the manual effort of making individual changes. Please note that bulk actions cannot be undone.

How can I upload shares or grants in bulk?

The system automatically creates stakeholder profiles during the bulk upload itself. Note - all employees must have unique email IDs. The bulk upload maps the grants to the existing employees using the email addresses. If no employee exists in the system for an email address in the excel sheet, a new employee profile will automatically be created.

How can I bulk upload already executed grants?

You can create these grants using the same bulk upload feature mentioned above. Note - the executed documents for these grants will need to be individually uploaded to each record. For companies subscribed to our Growth Plan, you can email us the PDFs or docx with us, preferably in a .zip folder. These files should have the Grant ID in the file names for us to be able to map them against the correct grants in the system.

Inviting Shareholders

How can I invite shareholders to whom I’ve issued equity?

For step-by-step instructions on inviting Shareholders, go to our Stakeholder Management page.

Equity Administration

Transactions

Stakeholder Experience

Advanced