QuotaBook, a Seoul-based equity management platform, has raised $11 million in funding led by Elefund, with the participation of Access Ventures, Hana Securities and South Korean fintech firm Viva Republica. Some of its past backers, including Draper Associates and Capstone Partners, joined the round.
The Korean startup, which graduated from Y Combinator (YC) Winter 21 batch, was founded by former venture capitalists Andy Choic, Dan Hong and Pilseon Junein 2019. Choi, the company’s CEO, said in an interview with ukbusinessupdates.com that the three, in their capacity as investors, noticed that startups in Korea and many other Asian countries still depended on Excel to manage their cap tables, stock options, stakeholder and other related information.
That meant that the financiers of the startups also had to understand these spreadsheets. “VCs were stuck with Excel sheets or very old ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) tools, so old that they are not web-based and can only be installed on Windows machines,” Choi said. “It created a very tedious and error-prone process where startups and investors regularly exchange critical stock data and company information via document attachments or text messages.”
Everyone manually typed in the data because investors and startups had different formats and had to double-check each side again, Choi told ukbusinessupdates.com.
“I had a case where the startup failed to provide their most up-to-date captable Excel sheet for over two months, making it difficult for us to get our investment valuations and returns to be reported to our LPs,” he said. choi.
QuotaBook will use the latest funding – bringing the total amount raised to approximately $20 million – to digitize the stock/fund management process, provide a common standard for security-related data and enable shareholder and board meetings to be held securely online . In addition, the startup plans to expand its product team, enter Southeast Asia and launch its investor service in the Middle East, Choi noted. “The [Asian] The market is still very young, so we also want to set up local offices or teams in regions such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan.”
Currently, the outfit employs 45 people, Choi added.
Image Credits: QuotaBook
QuotaBook claims it has more than 3,500 startups and investors on its platform, mostly based in South Korea, where the company started. About 40% of startups in Korea use QuotaBook’s service that provides cap table management, Choi said. In June, it launched a limited inventory unit (RSU) management service.
The SaaS-based platform offers two services: an equity management service for startupsincluding cap table management, stock option management, investor reporting, investor consents, shareholder and board meetings, and a fund management platform for investorswhich provides fund information, investment and return management, portfolio management, LP commitment and return management, LP reporting and analysis of fund activities.
The novice users start with a freemium subscription. If they upgrade to a plan with more features, they will be billed by the number of stakeholders, such as holders of securities and stock options, Choi said. Investors are also charged based on the AUM of their funds and the number of portfolios.
QuotaBook also recently launched a communication platform called QuotaSpace that focuses on the communication and networking between investors and their portfolio companies. Choi said more features are coming as well.
“Once our core business is established, we plan to expand into new business opportunities with the network and data we cover. Helping with secondary sales and providing data services are some examples,” he said.
QuotaBook did not give a rating when asked. The startup raised its previous funding in June 2021 from Draper Associates, Carta Ventures, Elefund, Goodwater Capital and Scale Asia Ventures.
