Slice, the only global equity platform utilizing AI for continuous compliance, has officially secured a raise worth $7 million in what was a seed financing round. Led by TLV Partners, the round saw further participation coming from the likes of R-Squared Ventures, Jibe Ventures, leading international law firms Wilson Sonsini, Fenwick & West, and notable angel investors. According to certain reports, the company will use these newly-raised funds to help CFOs and companies issue and manage equity to their international employees, and at the same time, navigate the complexity which had long remained associated with ever-changing regulations and tax codes across multiple jurisdictions. To get there, Slice will leverage its AI-powered platform capable of automatically ensuring that all global equity operations are compliant and tax-optimized so to maximize and protect the benefits of equity plans, both for employers and employees. Talk about the company’s proprietary platform on a slightly deeper level, we begin from its AI-based compliance engine which is capable of continuously analyzing changes in equity regulation and taxation. Next up, we must get into its ability to optimize tax for all types of equity grants, including qualified and non-qualified. Then, there is available a sense of knowhow in regards to sending pre-emptive actionable alerts to employers and employees, thus enabling them to steer clear of legal and tax exposure.
“Having spent 13 years as a corporate lawyer, I saw companies struggle to grant and manage equity to their international employees. I recognized the almost impossible task they faced of understanding and applying the complex and constantly changing law and tax regulations in various countries, and know of individual fines reaching well over $200K due to mistakes being made,” said Maor Levran, CEO and co-founder of Slice. “We’ve built a co-pilot for CFOs for equity management that is capable of handling months of complex work they’d normally request from local lawyers and tax advisors in a matter of minutes.”
Hold on, we still have a few bits left to unpack, considering we still haven’t mentioned how Slice’s platform is also decked up with the means to deliver fully customizable equity workflows that are easy to add and modify with no code, off-the-shelf templates. Among other details, we must mention that, as of today, the stated platform supports 23 countries including the US, UK, France, India, Australia, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan and Brazil, but that being said, there are plans already in place to reach more than 100 countries by the end of 2024.
Making the development even more important would be Slice’s existing stature. You see, the company is known for pioneering the use of LLMs when it came to equity compliance. This allowed its platform to quickly learn and apply country-specific tax codes and regulations impacting equity awards. Not just that, the solution is currently also well-equipped to monitor and analyze, as well as implement, the latest changes across multiple countries at the same time. Such a setup, like you can guess, makes it possible for it to uncover all types of employee stock options, addressing compliance and tax-code challenges to avoid the potential risk of financial penalties against both employers and employees.
“We were excited about Slice from day one as there’s a massive gap in the Global CFO stack around equity,” said Eitan Bek, co-founder and managing partner of TLV Partners. “It’s still extremely complicated to grant equity to international employees from a compliance and tax perspective. Existing solutions do not fully address the global complexities of equity grants. Slice is going after this precise area with a unique combination of talent and a top-notch legal, engineering, and product management team. We firmly believe they will quickly be able to deliver a new standard for global equity management.”
