Gust Equity Management Reviews 2025: Details, Pricing, & Features

Gust Equity Management Overview

What is Gust Equity Management?

Gust Equity Management (GEM) is a Software-as-a-Service platform simplifying the process of managing the evolution of enterprise capitalizations from startup through sale/IPO. Managing an enterprise capitalization table via Excel as well as the related documentation becomes a time-consuming and difficult process as a venture evolves, raises money, and grows. If early-stage startups trivialize or ignore their cap tables, mismanagement can cause significant expenses down the line when lawyers come in to clean it up, can create shareholder disputes, and might even kill an M&A deal. To put this into perspective, as an enterprise moves through its funding stages and development, it will typically deal with hundreds of equity issuances, option grants, exercises, forfeitures, transfers, vesting dates, board approvals, etc. All of these events must be tracked along with the underlying legal documentation in order to be auditable by shareholders and other interested parties. Because this kind of administrative work usually falls to legal counsel, it traditionally costs $200-500 an hour. To minimize costs and time investment, GEM corrects this inefficiency with tools that make the process easier, faster, and cheaper than traditional means. At its core, the GEM platform empowers internal or external administrators of the capitalization table by providing powerful and intuitive tools to track all the required documentation of any equity issuance, in one easy to use interface. In GEM, administrators can issue equity grants directly to employees / advisors through the platform, so there is no need to contact legal counsel every time they hire a new employee and need to issue grants. Through GEM, users can also request 409A valuation reports so they can issue option grants at a fair market value, avoiding tax consequences for both employees and the enterprise. GEM also handles ASC718 calculations (stock option expensing), a time-consuming and expensive exercise for GAAP-compliant financials. GEM also includes round modeling to see dilution impact on future equity and convertible note financing rounds, a time-hop feature allowing users to view the capitalization at any point in time, views for employees to track their equity vesting in real time, and other value-adding features.

Gust Equity Management Details

Discussions

Gust Equity Management Community

Show LessShow More

Product Description

Gust Equity Management (GEM) is a Software-as-a-Service platform that simplify the process of managing the evolution of enterprise capitalizations from startup through sale/IPO.

How do you position yourself against your competitors?

Gust Equity Management puts your company’s ownership structure on easy mode, saving time and money for busy people. Easily issue options, manage your cap table, receive audit-defensible 409a valuations, and stay compliant without incremental legal costs or hidden fees.

GEM also offers best-in-category support options. For customers who manage equity on behalf of clients, GEM's Equity Assistants can completely manage cap tables, requiring only approval of each action.

For startups seeking to divide their company's initial ownership, GEM provides a free, easy-to-use co-founder equity split tool at http://gust.ly/2gMmq63 to start the conversation.

Seller Details

Seller

Gust, Inc.

HQ Location

New York, NY

Twitter

@gustly
11,512 Twitter followers

LinkedIn® Page

www.linkedin.com
4 employees on LinkedIn®

Description

Gust is the global SaaS platform for founding, operating, and investing in scalable, high-growth companies. Gust’s online tools help entrepreneurs start, run, and fundraise for companies and provide deal flow and relationship management for investors. As the world’s largest community of entrepreneurs and early-stage investors from 191 countries, Gust pioneered the equity funding collaboration industry and is the official platform of the world’s leading angel investor federations and venture accelerators. More than 500,000 startups have already used Gust to connect with over 70,000 investment professionals. Gust powers the official online hubs of the world’s largest innovation ecosystems including New York City (Digital.NYC), Boston (StartHub.org) and London (Tech.London).

Overview Provided by:

David S. Rose

Founder & CEO at USREM

Recent Gust Equity Management Reviews

11/20/2021

Sam R.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

5.0 out of 5

"Incredibly simple, straightforward, and affordable solution for equity management & incorporation"

Gust's cap table management, incorporation process, and referral network are all great and work as advertised but are not necessarily exclusive to ...

9/30/2021

Chris T.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

4.5 out of 5

"Makes admin for company formation easy"

I like that Gust handles a lot of tedious and complex admin work around things like incorporation, cap table formation, and corporate actions.

9/20/2018

Verified UserMid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4.5 out of 5

"Great start for Equity Management"

This was a great tool for a small but growing company to manage their equity program. To eliminate costly legal costs around equity management we i...

This seller hasn't added their security information yet. Let them know that you'd like them to add it.

0 people requested security information

Gust Equity Management Media

Gust Equity Management Demo - Gust Equity Management -- Cap Table

Screenshot of Gust Equity Management's cap table solution

Gust Equity Management Demo - Gust Equity Management -- Exit Modeling

Screenshot of Gust Equity Management's modeling solution

G2 reviews are authentic and verified.

Here's how.

Sam R.

CEO

Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)

Validated Reviewer

Verified Current User

Review source: G2 invite

Incentivized Review

Nov 20, 2021

Business partner of the seller or seller's competitor, not included in G2 scores.

What do you like best about Gust Equity Management?

Gust's cap table management, incorporation process, and referral network are all great and work as advertised but are not necessarily exclusive to Gust. There are several digital solutions out there that offer similar features and sometimes even cheaper annual fees than Gust. The difference between these solutions and Gust, however, is that Gust feels like your own personal startup mentor, or guide, no matter what brought you to Gust or why you're using it. The user experience is clean and easy to use, and around every corner is a helpful article, video, or tooltip that provides insight and guidance to whatever you're trying to do. Never in my life did I think I would find a solution that makes understanding SAFEs and convertible notes easy to understand, but in Gust, I have. Gust has helped me understand incorporation, franchise taxes, even splitting equity among contractors and co-founders. Gust feels less like an equity management and incorporation solution and more like a personalized mentor, not to mention the support is on-part with the best services I've used in my time as a founder. You won't regret using Gust. Sure, it may seem like a decent fee to pay if you're strapped for cash or starting a new business, but the peace of mind and headaches it saves later are well worth it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Gust Equity Management?

Honestly nothing. I truly wish that I had something more useful or informative to write here, but every step of the Gust experience has been better than my expectations. I've received support on multiple occasions, and it's been great each time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Gust Equity Management solving and how is that benefiting you?

We've used Gust to incorporate, manage our cap table (issue SAFEs), prepare for corporate tax season (including Deleware franchise taxes), and learn numerous things that are important to running our startup (eg: equity distribution). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Show Less

Helpful?

Admin Approval Link

Verified User in Internet

Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)

Sep 20, 2018

This was a great tool for a small but growing company to manage their equity program. To eliminate costly legal costs around equity management we implemented Gust. This was an easy and intuitive tool to manage the dispersal of equity internally instead of paying hefty hourly rate for a law firm to draft the documents. There wasn't too much work to be done one the r=front end to get up and running and it was very easy to train on and use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I do wish the system has a transactional component. That would make the process even smoother if any monetary exchanges for equity could be managed in the same system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

High cost of equity management through a legal firm this allowed us to process internally with minimal legal support. We have been able to expand our program and include all employees in the equity program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.