Granting equity in one country already involves tax, securities, reporting, and payroll requirements. For startups with engineers in London, sales staff in Austin, and a product team in Tel Aviv, those obligations overlap across jurisdictions. Local plan rules and filings vary, and an employee relocation can introduce additional requirements.
Local regimes are not a niche concern. HMRC's official employee share scheme statistics show 20,650 UK companies used tax-advantaged share schemes in the year to April 2025, with about nine in ten running EMI, a scheme with no direct equivalent in the US or Israel. Mobility adds a second layer: the OECD International Migration Outlook 2025 reports that new permanent migration to OECD countries dipped only 4% in 2024 after three years of strong increases and remains high by historical standards, so grants increasingly vest across more than one tax system.
That is why the tool behind your cap table matters as much as the plan documents. A platform that tracks where each employee earned their equity, flags when a grant needs a local filing, and keeps HR, finance, and legal working from the same record saves weeks of manual reconciliation and a meaningful slice of outside counsel fees.
This guide compares five equity management platforms for startups with international teams on country coverage, workflows, HRIS integration, and reporting, with a closer look at local compliance, employee mobility, and cross-functional coordination.
Global Equity Management Platforms Overview
Platform | Best For | Pricing Model |
|---|---|---|
Slice | Startups managing equity across multiple jurisdictions | Quote-based plans |
Carta | US-incorporated companies standardizing on a widely used cap table | Tiered, by stakeholders |
Ledgy | European and global companies with mobile employees | Free Launch tier; paid plans |
|---|---|---|
Cake Equity | Early-stage teams that want a simple, employee-friendly tool | Free start, paid tiers |
J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions | Later-stage and public companies with large global plans | Enterprise quote |
The table gives the short version. Before the detailed reviews, here is how we judged each platform, since the right choice depends on how many countries you grant in and how often people move between them.
How We Evaluated These Platforms
We reviewed vendor documentation, product pages, and 2026 third-party reviews, and scored each platform on the criteria that matter most when equity crosses borders:
Country coverage: how many jurisdictions the platform's tax and legal logic covers, and whether local plan types and filings are built in or left to counsel.
Workflows: grants, approvals, exercises, and terminations, and whether they adapt to local requirements rather than assuming a US company.
HRIS integration: how reliably employee data, locations, and terminations sync, since stale HR data is the most common source of equity errors.
Reporting: stock-based compensation reporting under US-GAAP and IFRS, plus country-specific reports and audit trails.
Mobility and coordination: how the platform handles employees who relocate, and how well it keeps HR, finance, and legal aligned on the same data.
Features and pricing change quickly in this category, so confirm specifics with each vendor before you sign.
The 5 Best Equity Management Platforms for International Teams
1. Slice is an AI-native global equity platform built for startups and other companies managing equity across jurisdictions, combining cap table management with a compliance layer that checks every grant, exercise, and relocation against local rules. It raised a $25 million Series A led by Insight Partners in January 2026.
Best for: Venture-backed startups with employees in several countries that want compliance handled inside the equity workflow rather than through rounds of email with local counsel.
Key features:
Compliance Center: a compliance engine that spans more than 60 tax authorities, from HMRC and the IRS to the ATO, and re-checks affected grants whenever a key event happens and ranks issues by risk.
Relocation triggers: an employee move is treated as a compliance event, so the platform flags new obligations in the destination country.
Country-aware workflows: a Template Manager for country- and equity-type-specific grant documents, board and stockholder approval flows, and Rule 701 checks before each grant.
Reporting: stock-based compensation reports under US-GAAP and IFRS, Form 3921 generation, QSBS tracking, and country-specific reports.
Why we like it: Slice's event-driven compliance engine re-checks affected equity records when grants, exercises, or relocations occur and prioritizes alerts by risk. Its built-in assistant explains each alert in plain language and who should own it, which makes it easier for HR, finance, and legal to work the same queue. The company reports a 60% cut in equity operations cycle times and an 80% drop in local counsel costs, figures worth testing against your own baseline.
Keep in mind:
As a newer vendor, it has a shorter track record and fewer public reviews than Carta or J.P. Morgan
Its customer base leans toward tech companies with US and Israeli roots, so confirm depth for your specific countries in a demo
Pricing: Plan-based pricing on request; no public price list.
Security and privacy: Slice reports SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 assurance reports and ISO 27001 certification. Separately, the company states that it complies with GDPR.
2. Carta offers cap table management for US startups alongside international capabilities, including UK EMI plan workflows, HMRC reporting, and HRIS integrations. Its Deel partnership adds option-exercise withholding support for eligible employees.
Best for: US-incorporated companies with a growing international headcount that want to stay on a platform their investors and law firms already know.
Key features:
HRIS integrations: syncs with more than 100 HRIS providers, pulling job titles, tax IDs, terminations, and location data.
International withholding: Carta's Deel integration supports tax calculations and local-currency option-exercise payments in 21 listed countries for eligible Deel EOR and Global Payroll employees at US-incorporated companies using both platforms. India is Global Payroll only; confirm current eligibility and payroll remittance arrangements.
UK share plans and reporting: EMI plan workflows, compliance monitoring, and HMRC reporting support sit alongside Carta's international withholding integration.
Investor ecosystem: fundraising, 409A valuations, and stock-based compensation reporting in one place.
Why we like it: Its network effect is real: investors, counsel, and employees often already have Carta accounts, which smooths fundraising and diligence for US-incorporated companies.
Keep in mind:
Deel withholding eligibility depends on the employee's country and employment arrangement; this integration is separate from Carta's UK share-plan and reporting capabilities
Confirm which regional product, local plan types, and reporting features support your parent entity and employee locations
Pricing: Tiered plans that scale with stakeholders and add-ons; enterprise pricing is quote-based.
3. Ledgy is a Zurich-founded equity management platform used by organizations in 45+ countries, with particular strength among European companies and in tracking employees who move.
Best for: European and globally distributed companies that need clear mobility records and local HRIS connections.
Key features:
Global mobility reporting: tracks each employee's location history and shows the equity earned in each location, with downloadable reports.
HRIS integrations: 70+ integrations, including systems such as BambooHR, Personio, HiBob, and Workday. Availability depends on the plan.
Tax estimates: supports withholding estimates using manually entered rates or partner tools for exercises and releases. These estimates are separate from collecting taxes and remitting them to the relevant authorities.
Valuations and grant types: 409A, HMRC, and BSPCE valuations, international grant types, and support for public companies.
Why we like it: Ledgy's location-history approach answers the question auditors and tax teams ask most often about mobile employees: how much of this equity was earned where.
Keep in mind:
Confirm how manually entered rates or partner-generated estimates connect to payroll, and who handles tax collection and remittance
Its strongest coverage is in Europe, so check depth for Asia-Pacific or Latin American entities
Pricing: A free Launch tier supports up to 50 stakeholders with basic cap table and equity-plan features. Paid plans add functionality; confirm that mobility reporting, HRIS integrations, and other required features are included in your chosen plan.
4. Cake Equity
Cake Equity is an Australian-founded equity platform built for simplicity, with an employee app that makes ownership easy to understand for staff in any country.
Best for: Early-stage companies with a small international team that want a clean, low-cost tool before compliance complexity peaks.
Key features:
Employee experience: a dedicated app shows how much has vested, what it is worth, and when employees can exercise, and lets employees set equity goals.
Reporting: Pro supports ASC 718 and IFRS 2 expense reports using existing equity data and fair-value inputs.
Valuations: Cake advertises a draft 409A valuation within three business days after the required cap table information and financial documents are submitted. Valuations are included in Team and Pro, with add-on options; final approval follows review with the valuation expert.
Easy switching: free migration and a free starting point.
Why we like it: It lowers the barrier to offering equity at all, and the employee app helps distributed staff see the value of their grants without a call to HR.
Keep in mind:
Built-in legal templates focus on US C-Corps, so non-US plan documents still need local counsel
Multi-country tax compliance is lighter than on Slice or Ledgy, which matters once you grant in several jurisdictions
Pricing: Free for up to five stakeholders, with paid Build, Team, and Pro plans. Team includes two 409A valuations per year; confirm current inclusions and add-on terms.
5. J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions
J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions (formerly Global Shares) offers an equity platform that follows companies from early-stage cap table through pre-IPO to public plan administration, backed by J.P. Morgan's global footprint.
Best for: Later-stage and public companies running large global plans that want administration, reporting, and share trading in one relationship.
Key features:
Stage-based platform: cap table and round modeling early on, then financial reporting, share dealing, and cross-jurisdiction trading as the company matures.
Integrations: API connections to HRIS and tax systems.
Reporting: audit-ready reports covering expense, disclosure, tax, and EPS, plus BI reporting for public companies.
Service model: a dedicated account manager and multilingual employee support.
Why we like it: For companies heading toward or already past an IPO, it avoids a platform migration at the moment you can least afford one.
Keep in mind:
It is built for scale, so implementation and pricing are heavier than a startup needs
Public product pages say little about mobility handling, so ask how relocations are tracked
Pricing: Enterprise pricing on request.
How to Choose an Equity Platform for an International Team
List every country you grant in, now and in 18 months. Ask each vendor to show, country by country, which plan types, filings, and tax rules are built in and which fall back to counsel.
Run a relocation scenario. Move a test employee from one country to another mid-vesting and see what the platform flags, records, and reports.
Test your actual HRIS. Confirm the integration syncs locations and terminations automatically, not just names and start dates.
Check reporting against your auditors' needs. If you report under IFRS or have non-US subsidiaries, make sure the expense reports match the standard you file under.
Map who does what. Decide which steps belong to HR, finance, and legal, and check that permissions, approvals, and audit trails support that split.
The Bottom Line
The more countries you grant in, the less a cap table alone protects you. Carta remains the default for US-incorporated companies that want investor familiarity, Ledgy is strong for European teams with mobile employees, Cake Equity keeps things simple for early-stage companies, and J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions fits companies on the road to or past an IPO.
For startups whose equity spans several jurisdictions, Slice is a strong option to evaluate for its event-driven compliance checks across grants, exercises, and relocations. Book demos with two finalists and walk each one through the same cross-border scenario; the gaps show up quickly.
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