Adding a grant
Adding a grant
After you have added your first option pool, you can then start issuing grants to reward and incentivize your employees
To create a grant, you just need to:
Go to your Option Pools screen ( Cap table > Option Pools)
Click the Create a grant button
Once you've done so, the following screen will appear:
Beneficiary - Select your employee/beneficiary from the list of stakeholders (you can also create a new stakeholder to be awarded the grant directly from here)
Grant from - Select from which Option Pool you'd like to grant the beneficiary his/hers options
Grant amount - The total number of Options to be granted to the beneficiary
Grant date - The starting date of the Grant contract
GRANT DETAILS
Strike price -the price the beneficiary can pay for an Option exercise his/her right to turn that Option into a share
Vesting type - can be either Time based (and a vesting schedule must be selected) or Immediately vest (this means the options will be immediately vested to the beneficiary, without requiring time to have passed) or can be Performance Based which means that grantees will need to accomplish different milestones before having their options vest.
TIME BASED GRANT DETAILS
Duration - the total amount of time expressed in months after which the beneficiary will have vested his/her total amount of Options
Vest every - The frequency at which a portion of the equity grant becomes available for the beneficiary to exercise (if 1 MONTH selected, that means every month an amount of Options will vest).
Rounding - up / down - since options are 1:1 shares, and there can’t be a fractional amount of shares, neither can options. So in case a natural number of shares can’t be issued each month, you need to take a decision whether you should round up or down when doing this calculation (it’s better for your employee if you choose to round up, since s/he will get more options up front)
Cliff - A cliff period is a duration at the beginning of an employee's vesting schedule during which they do not receive any equity. After the cliff period ends, the employee is eligible to receive a portion of their equity grant.
Exercise period - The period of time during which an employee can exercise their vested options. Once the exercise period expires, the option can no longer be exercised.
Accelerated vesting - Toggle ON to allow employees to gain full ownership of equity compensation earlier than scheduled in case of a specific event like a merger, acquisition or retirement.
PERFORMANCE BASED GRANTS
MILESTONE description - what is the objective the user must reach in order to have his options vested
Target date - the date before which the grantee must accomplish the milestone in order for the options to be vested
Admins can add up to 5 milestones for each grant, each with their own description and target date
After creating a grant to one of your employees, the following table will appear on your Option Pools screen
Grants table
Option holder - shareholder/employee who owns the grant
Pool name - from which option pool the options to be awarded to the option holder come from
Grant # - number of the grant the shareholder received
Date - Date when the option contract starts
Vesting schedule - ex 24/1/6 - 24 - total duration / 1 - vesting period (every 1 month) / 6 - cliff period (6 month cliff)
Granted - total options to be awarded by the grant
Vested - Number of Options that have vested till today based on the vesting schedule
Outstanding -Gives you the number of Options that are still held as Grants (Outstanding = granted - exercised - terminated - expired)
Exercisable - Number of Options that are still left to be exercised (auto calculated: Exercisable = Vested - exercised - settled - terminated - expired
Exercised -sum of grants exercised by beneficiary
Settled - sum of beneficiary's grants settled in cash and not shares if any
Terminated - sum of beneficiary's terminated grants if any
Expired (auto calculated) based on expiration period of grant (defined when creating the grant)
Note:
After issuing a grant to your employee, s/he will be able to view it from their dashboard and have a better understanding of the value of their options and when they will vest
