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Release Notes - 2020

Updated

 

This article provides a brief description of the release notes for important new features and enhancements to the Shoobx platform. Updates to this article will happen in parallel to the Shoobx development schedule, and will be published every two weeks.   

 

December 18, 2020

General Updates

  • Ww have made changes to the Ownership Summary version of the Cap Table. It now has editable cut-offs via the Administration > Ownership Summary settings.

  • A fix was implemented for the termination workflow, so that we always ask about promises if there were no grants.

December 4, 2020

General Updates

  • We have refreshed our email style in order to make the branding clearer and provide a better user experience.
  • We have made significant improvements to our ASC 718 process.
  • A new improvement was added to our planner experience.
  • We have improved the speed for changing process drivers of workflows.
  • A change was implemented that causes approval processes will now auto-complete if there are no remaining tasks.

November 20, 2020

General Updates

  • We have changed our onboarding workflows to support renaming and deleting financing events and stock classes.
  • We have streamlined and improved the third party review process so that it is no longer a separate workflow.
  • The restricted stock grant process was updated to provide support for non-cash payment consideration (e.g. intellectual property or services).
  • The document templates in the Equity Financing workflow have been updated to reflect recent updates to the NVCA model financing documents.
  • Equity promises for stakeholders with multiple roles will no longer be cancelled upon termination.
  • Warrants that have expired will now be automatically removed from the cap table. 
  • The data room document selection widget has been improved to be more user-friendly.
  • Improvements were made to ensure documents exported from Shoobx into Word contained all necessary data. 

November 6, 2020

General Updates

  • We have re-released the Next Round Planner and Exit Scenario Planner with performance and UI enhancements.
  • A new feature was implemented that allows users to waive certain core documents during the generative equity financing workflow.
  • New HR Reports (Employee Report, Consultant Report, and Advisor Report), which appear on the company's Shoobx dashboard, were developed and released. 
  • We have added additional context to the user approval process, so that the approver knows who requested the addition of a user to their company.

October 23, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added a "continue" element in the background of certain complex workflows to prevent users who are signing or approving documents from having to wait for background processing to complete.

  • We have implemented a change to hide irrelevant metadata from the sidebar panel when users are viewing uploaded financing documents in the Data Room.

  • A new change was added that includes promised equity in the Cap Table.

October 9, 2020

General Updates

  • We have made multiple performance enhancements to support hundreds of simultaneous grants.

  • We have made changes to the cross company dashboard so that entities are now de-emphasized when they are inactive.

  • A new change was implemented that allows for editing invite emails when adding users to a fund.
  • We have continued to improve and relocate the email editing functionality to the Checkpoint step in our workflows. We have also redesigned all system-generated emails.

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September 25, 2020

General Updates

  • We have made changes to the Exit Scenario Planner. It now handles debt and alternative instruments that have the option to convert to stock equivalents at exit.

  • A new fix was implemented so that workflow steps no longer appear as blocking for users when they are waiting for action from others.

  • We have removed the expiration date for restricted stock grants outside of the plan.

  • The Add Advisor and Add Consultant workflows now provide the ability to edit invitation email content at the checkpoint step in each workflow.

  • We now allow for editing of entity names that have not yet been invited to Shoobx.

  • An improvement was made to our investment portfolio pdf export so the user can provide a date, and have all data included be as of the date provided.

  • We have fixed an issue that resulted from changes in offer letter signatories while a workflow was in flight.

  • We have improved document processing times for Board Consents. Previously, the last board member to sign had to wait for all grant documents to update. Now, the board member can sign and submit quickly and the system will do these updates in the background. 

  • New information about the workflow initiator has been added to the job change report.

  • We have made significant performance improvements to our grant shares process, to support the processing of up to 500 grants in a single workflow.

September 11, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added functionality to allow users to share wire information with incoming investors within the generative Equity Financing workflow.

  • We have exposed more vesting information in the Board Resolution for Restricted Stock grants.

  • We have de-emphasized inactive companies on the cross company dashboard to make it easier to navigate.

  • A change was made so that vesting is now based on partial shares to prevent issues counting vested shares following a stock split.

  • We added the ability to export "as of" spreadsheets for investment fund companies and have made improvements to the Exit Scenario Planner.

August 28, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added the capability of amending a Stock Incentive Plan, creating a new Plan, or uploading a Plan that was generated outside of Shoobx, to the generative Equity Financing workflow.

  • We have improved the Exit Scenario Planner for fund management clients.

  • Our stock transfer documents can now support uploaded signature pages.

  • Legal counsel has been granted Cap Table edit capabilities.

  • We have also made changes so that user profiles can now be edited even if the user has not been invited to Shoobx yet.

August 14, 2020

General Updates

  • The financings report now includes information on post-money valuation(s) and is available in the history of financings.

  • The portfolio management Exit Scenario Planner was improved to handle all cases, and the usability, maintainability, and performance of the Planner was improved as well.

  • The onboarding process now allows for all note purchase agreements and stock purchase agreements that are uploaded to include additional closings.

  • We have implemented a fix which allows stakeholders with limited access to folders to view those folders during the Sign External Document workflow.

  • Permissions have been updated so that stakeholders with the ability to start company processes can now view all other stakeholders in the company.

  • We have made fixes to the data room export so that it correctly respects the input added after a given date.

  • Several improvements were made to the Job Change report.

July 31, 2020

General Updates

  • Our Equity Financing workflow has been improved so that now, when a user signals that a signature for a Board or Stockholder Consent will be uploaded into Shoobx, we provide clean, ready to execute signature page pdfs.

  • We have also added a workflow that will allow a user to invite multiple stakeholders into Shoobx. This is helpful for companies that have completed onboarding and would like to bulk invite their employees, stockholders, etc. once they have reviewed all documents and information.

  • A new fix has been added so that companies which are marked inactive no longer appear in the drop-down of the available companies menu if a user has stakes in multiple companies.

July 17, 2020

General Updates

  • A new fix has improved the handling of document titles that have been customized in the editor.

  • We have made changes to the stakeholder access for users in companies that have been deactivated, to prevent confusion over documents and data that are no longer being managed on Shoobx.

July 3, 2020

General Updates

  • We have streamlined and significantly improved our Data Room document search capabilities.

  • We have rebuilt the ASC718 Excel export to meet the standards of outside auditors. 

June 19, 2020

General Updates

  • We have made significant changes to our Equity Financing workflow. These include a fix for the organization of Board and Shareholder resolutions during the editing of Board and Stockholder Consents and a cleaner organization of financing documents in the Data Room for investors who have participated in multiple financings in the same company.

  • We have improved our client onboarding process by allowing for bulk onboarding capabilities to assist larger companies' migration onto the platform.

  • A new fix was added that will allow for updating the default post-termination exercise window during the Amend Stock Incentive Plan workflow.

  • We changed our User Profiles so that the employment state field is no longer visible for international employees.

June 5, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added Shoobx Support workflows for cancelling notes and pre-paying notes. This workflow will be used by the Shoobx support team to assist clients whose notes have been cancelled or repaid.

  • A fix was added so that exercises will not show up on the Cap Table until after they have been approved and the stock certificates have been fully signed.

  • Metadata fields that are normally hidden will no longer appear at the checkpoint in a workflow or in the Data Room metadata summary column.

  • Our Add Consultant/Contractor workflow has been updated so that the workflow will explicitly ask whether a consultant is a US person in order to handle whether W-9s are required or not.

May 22, 2020

General Updates

  • A new fix was added so that blacklisted emails of firms will now match funds, and expose the fund name, so that users will no longer get stuck in a loop.

  • Our Portfolio Management product was enhanced to provide more accurate dividend support and a better Excel export.

  • We have also enhanced our determination of grant type for Promised Equity. We now rely on employment time to determine NQOs versus ISOs for uploaded offers.

May 8, 2020

General Updates

  • We have implemented extensive changes to our Equity Financing workflow as a result of client use. This includes a new downloadable report outlining what document sections have been customized.

  • We modified our onboarding process so that fair market value is set for onboarding clients to allow for the granting of additional founders shares.

  • A few changes have been implemented in our Data Room, bridge notes and financing documents are now automatically arranged into specific folders.

April 24, 2020

General Updates

  • A report outlining what document sections have been customized is now available for download in the Equity Financing workflow, to help clients understand what changes have been made which deviate from the standard form documents. 

  • Fair market value is now set during the onboarding process, so that clients who wish to grant additional founders' shares through Shoobx can do so easily.

  • Bridge Notes and other financing documents are now automatically put into specific folders designated for those financing events.

  • We fixed an issue where emails to firm members that were blacklisted would cause a user trying to add someone to a firm to get stuck in a loop.

  • Support for dividends, debt instruments, and the Excel export for the Portfolio Management product were all enhanced.

  • We improved the process for determining the grant type for Promised Equity—we now rely on employment type to determine NQO vs ISO for uploaded offer letters that contain equity promises. 

April 10, 2020

General Updates

  • The Equity Financing workflow was updated to allow users to designate additional signatories on financing documents. 

  • The Employee Equity Report was updated to include equity promises identified during a job change workflow.

  • The approval process for electronic stock certificates was improved to include the ability to approve certificates for existing classes and future classes at the same time.

  • The cross company dashboard was improved to make it easier for users to see which tasks require their attention, and to include messaging for investors regarding optional portfolio management capabilities. 

March 27, 2020

General Updates

  • Several features of the Portfolio Management app for investors were improved, and an expanded company summary PDF export was added.

  • Company relationship roles (e.g. employee, consultant, stockholder) were updated, which introduces the ability to select which role should be terminated when a user has more than one. For example, the ability to terminate a summer intern while leaving his/her post graduation full-time job offer in place.

  • Consulting Agreement Amendments will now reference the correct sections and the original agreement (with version reflected, e.g. second amendment). They also now have the correct signature placeholder for a person who will likely sign the document, rather than assuming it will. be the company president.

  • The Grant Shares workflow was improved by removing redundant questions.

  • Also in the Grant Shares workflow, when a stock grant has a $0.00 purchase price, a proof of purchase is no longer requested.

  • Workflows now show a clearer message when the conditions for running the workflow are no longer satisfied at the checkpoint. For example, if counsel must be registered to run a certain workflow, and the counsel relationship is terminated mid-workflow, the user will be alerted to that fact. 

March 13, 2020

General Updates

  • We have implemented several bug fixes in the equity financing workflow.

  • We have significantly improved our portfolio management offering. Among these changes, we have  improved the Excel export for portfolio companies and will continue to enhance this to include different summaries. We have also completed an initial company summary PDF page for portfolio companies. Additionally, we have created permanent transaction IDs for better synchronization with the portfolio management application. We have also enhanced the stability, usability and accuracy of the portfolio management application.

  • We have updated the I-9 review process to handle new COVID-19 regulations, which allow for deferral of the physical inspection of documents due to the pandemic.

  • We have also added small fixes and adjustments to our HR subsystem, which include permissioning updates for employee profiles, capturing job change events in the employee record, and the option to include previous salary in job change documents.

  • A usability improvement was added to the document management and editing function that removes the metadata terms button from the document section editor.

  • We have also fixed an issue where the Legal Services application panel would appear for users who had already registered for legal counsel with a firm offering Legal Services.

February 28, 2020

General Updates

  • We have made several changes to the equity financing workflow:

    • We have rearranged the closing steps page for lawyers using the workflow to make it more intuitive, and provide them more control over the process.

    • We have also added a report to the Data Room which lists the customizations made to the financing documents that are generated during the workflow. 

    • We have fixed the issue where resolutions would appear editable on the Review and Edit step of the workflow when no other documents are editable.

    • We have added the ability to skip investor initialization if the signature block is pre-seeded by the process driver and accepted by the investor during the workflow.

  • We now collect additional data during the termination workflow such as the date through which the individual should be paid, and information on whether the employee will receive severance.

  • We have made changes to the Org Chart so that the primary contact for consulting companies is featured; previously, the consulting companies' names were featured instead.

  • A new change was made so that we terminate pending counsel registration requests upon counsel registration.

  • We have fixed an issue with our grant constraints page, which was counting shares from all classes instead of solely counting common stock.

  • We fixed an issue that was causing resolutions to appear out of order on shareholder and board consents.

  • We have updated the Data Room so that folder counts now update automatically when a document is uploaded to the Data Room.

February 14, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added the option of downloading a stand alone signature page during our equity financing workflow. This document can easily be printed, signed, and uploaded for signers who are unable to sign in Shoobx. 

  • We now show documents for Shoobx companies that have portfolio management capabilities turned on in the investor in their Data Room. These are located in a folder titled with the portfolio company name.

  • Our team has also added more robust and performant data synchronization for on-Shoobx portfolio companies to the portfolio management lens.

  • The Termination workflow now offers a step to confirm the post-termination exercise window and acceleration. This page also allows for more flexibility to edit the grant, define acceleration or specify the number of shares accelerating.

  • We have added the capacity to cancel unexercised grants from the Capitalization Table. Clicking on the Cancel Grant workflow from this screen will pre-seed the workflow with details of that grant from the Cap Table.

  • A new feature was added to our Cap Table Excel export so that users now have the ability to group institutional investors by their parent entity.

  • We have improved the relationship management headers to clearly alert users when a company is classified as "pending" or "inactive" in Shoobx.

  • A new field was added to display bonus information in the Employee Compensation Report.

  • We have added to the Employment Record profile panel so that, after termination, these employees will have a field that indicates the "terminated" status of a former employee.

  • We have made significant changes to the consent workflows (Board, Stockholder, Meeting Minutes and Consents generated within workflows). Now, consents have an editable introduction, a default general authority resolution, and the "Edit Document" functionality has been replaced throughout with the "Edit Resolutions" feature.

  • We have made changes to the NDA process so that users can now specify who is authorized to sign NDAs. In the event that multiple users are authorized, the system will default to the first one.

  • An additional change was made to the NDA process so that, when a signer declines to set up a relationship during this workflow, the process is returned to the checkpoint and alerted. In the past, the workflow would auto-complete when a signer rejected the relationship.

  • We have added a new message to the Next Steps modal after the completion of Legal Review that reads “Thank you for reviewing documents on behalf of your client on Shoobx”; previously, lawyers received no message upon completion of legal review.

  • A new fix was added that prevents users from filing Annual Reports in DE if the company has not gone through Post-Incorporation on Shoobx.

  • A fix was added to resolve an issue where copies of Welcome emails were not being sent to the person running the Add Employee workflow.

  • A new fix was implemented so that team members added to an entity can be changed to team managers.

January 31, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added some features to the equity financing workflow. We have added the step for the Lawyer to review Stock Certificate legends and have improved the usability of the Wait for Approvals page.

  • We have also made some changes to our fund management capabilities. Among them are creating an excel export for exit scenarios, easier manual entry of complex transaction history for portfolio companies, and we have improved the excel support for tabular data and the ability to create multiple worksheets.

  • We now allow for team stakeholders to view their equity panel on their main dashboard if they have any active grants.

  • A new change was added to expose a consultant's termination date in the Employee Overview Report.

  • We have released a new capability to capture bonus currency alongside the fixed bonus plan amount in order to better reflect compensation for non-US employees.

  • A fix was released for the Data Room Index so that all documents uploaded directly to the Data Room are included in the export.

  • We have also adjusted our onboarding process so that it correctly handles the reuse of Board and Stockholder Consents across different processes.

January 17, 2020

General Updates

  • We have added anti-dilution capabilities to the finance planners and capitalization table export in the Equity Financing workflow. We also fixed an issue with the planner so that a stock class change will correctly update the amount available for that class.

  • We have made the signature page groups optional for additional contracts in the Equity Financing.

  • We have upgraded the "wait for signatures" stage to provide a single consolidated status summary for ease of review.

  • We have fixed an issue with document formatting when documents contain HTML characters.

  • We now allow for uploaded Stockholder and Board Consent documents to have their exhibits managed, so Shoobx can keep the ordering and labeling of exhibits for uploaded consents and allow for signing within Shoobx.

  • We fixed an issue with the Delaware Annual Report filing; now, the company address is populated correctly and authorized shares per class are calculated appropriately.

  • We fixed an issue that caused certain metadata not to be copied over when amending the Charter during a Change Authorized Shares workflow.

  • We have added a fix to the equity portion of the onboarding workflow, so that a stock certificate is no longer required when all shares were repurchased.

January 3, 2020

General Updates

We have made several updates to the Equity Financing workflow, each of which is described below: 

  • Indemnification Agreements and the accompanying exhibits in the generated Board Consent will accurately reflect the form(s) of indemnity agreements being used in the process that require board approval.

  • Key Holders can be changed at any point during the closing process, and the workflow will now capture this information and reflect it in the documentation generated.

  • Investor side-flow options are now provided after the Checkpoint stage for later updates to investment, management rights, and investor details.

  • We added the ability to include additional contracts relevant to the financing into the workflow and track their execution along with other financing documents.

  • The workflow now supports uploaded document body content in tandem with Shoobx document execution (for instances where the transactions underwent significant changes, etc.). For the uploaded body content, at the end of the process, the workflow will confirm that the final version has been uploaded and that all critical metadata has been captured.

  • We have also improved the signature upload capability for this workflow (for investors and other signatories who prefer to sign documents outside of Shoobx).

  • New dynamic document lists have been included that capture the changes made in one part of the workflow that necessitate changes in other parts of the process. For instance, any update to an indemnification agreement or a stock certificate will be instantly reflected in other applicable documents generated during the workflow.

  • In cases where users upload the body of the Board Consent, users will also be able to define the Board Consent exhibits.

  • The Disclosure Schedule now provides the explicit opportunity for the lawyers to manually release the Disclosure Schedule to third parties for review. Prior to this advance, the Disclosure Schedule was associated with the Stock Purchase Agreement, which offered less control for sharing of documents during the negotiation process.

  • Users can now create a new Stock Incentive Plan in connection with the financing, in the event that none currently exists.

  • We have vastly improved the Next Round Planner function, which deals with pre- and post-conversion and Stock Incentive Plan constraints, within in the Equity Financing workflow.

  • A new fix was added that better handles late changes during the financing, such as: changes to Management Rights Letters, changes to Key Holders after signatures have been collected, additions of new investors after signatures, and changes to Indemnification Agreements after signatures.

  • All ancillary documents and existing templates have been improved to incorporate feedback gathered during earlier financings, and to provide additional support for custom sections and titles. 

  • We have added a fix for .docx conversions for template documents with automated formatting.

  • We have also built a warning into the deletion of text in the document editor that reminds users of sub-flows where they can make additional changes.

  • We have improved the fund and investor experience on the platform, including easier onboarding and predefined signature blocks when participating in a financing.

  • We have added improvements to our document editor function to make document revisions easier.

  • Our workflows now support proper updating of related workflows to ensure that actions cannot be initiated at inappropriate times (i.e. if the Charter has been filed, the user should not be able to change the Charter). 

  • A new step, the Monitor Closing Steps page, has been added to the process that provides a consolidated "wait" step that captures multiple individual "wait" steps happening at the same time. This operates like a dynamic Closing Agenda allowing the user to monitor all "wait" steps on the same screen. 

Updates to other Shoobx features and functionality are as follows: 

  • We have released a brand new portfolio management application which includes features that allow investors to monitor their holdings, explore various exit scenario projections, and build profiles for their portfolio companies.

  • Our team has added a new employee task management experience that facilitates the rescheduling and reassigning of tasks, as well as the creation of new tasks, and the ability to handle permissions for managing tasks.

  • We have updated our W-4 form to reflect the IRS’s new 2020 W-4.

  • A new fix prevents users from repurchasing shares during termination and outside of termination simultaneously; now, users are blocked from accidentally executing duplicate repurchases.

  • We have addressed an issue with the termination of a firm member from a relationship so that  the member will now be removed from the relationship completely, effectively removing all relevant access and permissions.

  • We have also made changes to equity promises that are affected by a stock split. Now, the Grant Plan Shares workflow will show the changes to the equity to reflect the correct adjustments.

Third parties mentioned and Fidelity Private Shares LLC are not affiliated.

Fidelity Private Shares LLC provides cap table management and other administrative services to private companies and their equity compensation plans.

Fidelity Private Shares LLC

© 2024 FMR LLC. All rights reserved.

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