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Since the moment Plum burst onto the fintech scene, the team has been on a mission to change the way we save, invest and manage our money. This visionary goal of disrupting finance for the better is something Capdesk can wholeheartedly get behind.
The company has gone from strength to strength and last year raised an £18 million series A. Leading the way was Head of Financial Accounting, Charalampos Chatzitheodosiou, who joined the startup in 2020.
Shortly after arriving at Plum, Charalampos began laying foundations by working on the company’s most important financial practices, cap table management included. Enjoying the fruits of his labour over a year later, he spoke to us about the role Capdesk played in Plum’s growth and success.
When Charalampos joined Plum, his challenge was to set up the finance department. Now a well-oiled machine, the department oversees all financial accounting processes, from financial statements and payroll to equity management and investor relations. One of his first tasks, he recalled, was overhauling the company’s equity management.
“When I arrived, I knew the team was considering Capdesk. At first, I was sceptical because I’d only used spreadsheets before. Looking back now, I’m so glad we chose to streamline and automate the process early on.”
After onboarding to Capdesk and discovering the full suite of features, he described how it “turned any questions into excitement to begin using this amazingly convenient tool.”
Investor reporting used to take a lot of time at Plum, requiring input from lots of different departments. Stakeholders would pull reports and attach them as spreadsheets to countless emails, following inefficient and unwieldy processes.
The solution to this problem was implementing Capdesk. Charalampos described the platform as “a one-stop-shop for everything equity-related.” Listing some of the major benefits of using Capdesk, he mentioned how “all Plum’s data is accurately stored, and investors have direct access whenever they need it. Now, every single month, a lot of the manual and time-consuming efforts are out of the picture."
One of the biggest savings Charalampos and his team made was during the series A fundraise using Capdesk’s round modelling reporting function. “It would usually take us four to five days to execute manually,” he explained, “but at the click of a button, Capdesk generated our round modelling report in two minutes. That was a big win.”
Company ownership is important to Plum. After the fintech’s series A, led by institutional and private investors, Plum decided to crowdfund. It was a runaway success, raising more than £7 million from over 11,000 investors, and will help the business expand across Europe. Charalampos touched on why it was a big deal for Plum to bring retail investors along for the ride.
"Plum’s mission is to help everyday people save and grow their money. We decided to crowdfund because we wanted to give our present and future users the opportunity to own part of our company, grow with us and share in our success. It was the natural next step.”
A similar mindset prevails within the business when it comes to employee ownership. Plum believes that whether you put time, expertise or money into building the business, you deserve to benefit from its future success.
The company’s headcount has doubled from 50 to almost 100 in the space of a year and continues to grow. Every employee has options, an incentive that is amplified by Capdesk because Plum employees can “engage with their equity and track their options as they vest. It helps keep them aligned with the bigger picture and commercial goals.”
With an array of shareholders on the company cap table, Charalampos relies on Capdesk’s efficiency and accuracy to keep Plum’s business healthy. When asked how Capdesk has helped Plum, he summed it up on in one sentence:
“Having all the equity management related to our employees, private investors and crowdfunders in one secure place – on Capdesk – has been key to our success and growth.”
