Artemezya is a cutting-edge Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) Management Solution that leverages Stellar blockchain technology to streamline and secure the entire lifecycle of ESOPs. By addressing key challenges in granting, documentation, vesting, exercising options, and selling shares, our platform ensures compliance, transparency, and security.

Problems Solved

1. Granting and Documentation: Managing ESOPs starts with determining which employees are eligible, issuing grant letters, and keeping detailed records. Eligibility criteria can be complex, and employees frequently change roles.

2. Vesting: Involves tracking when employees earn the right to their stock options, which can follow various schedules. Changes in employment status can affect vesting, requiring constant updates.

3. Exercising Options: When employees want to use their stock options, the process involves calculating the correct prices, handling requests, and ensuring all legal requirements are met. Accurate and timely processing is critical to avoid financial losses for employees and to comply with regulations.

4. Selling: ESOP shares involves managing restrictions like blackout periods and ensuring compliance with insider trading laws. The process requires coordination with brokers and timely execution to avoid discrepancies in publicly listed firms. 

Key Features

Plan Creation and Management:

• ESOP Plan Setup: Define plan rules, eligibility criteria, and allocation methods.
• Vesting Schedules: Support various vesting schedules (e.g., cliff vesting, graded vesting).

Blockchain Features:

• Token Issuance: Create and distribute tokens representing ESOP shares.
• Smart Contracts:
  - Automate Issuance of grant letters and ESOPs tokens
  - Automate vesting schedules with Dynamic adjustments to changes in employment status and other criteria
  - Automate exercising conditions, calculations with Real time execution
• Transaction Ledger: Immutable record of all transactions and vesting events.

Employee Portal:

• Dashboard: Overview of allocated shares, vested shares, and current value.
• Vesting Details: Detailed view of vesting schedules and timelines.
• Exercise Options: Mechanism to exercise vested options.
• Sell Options: compliant trading of ESOP shares among eligible parties

Admin Portal:

• Plan Administration: Tools to manage ESOP plans, allocate shares, and track vesting.
• Compliance Tracking: Ensure regulatory compliance with automated checks and reports.
• Reporting: Generate detailed reports on ESOP distribution, vesting progress, and employee participation.

Communication Tools:

• Notifications: Automated notifications for key events (e.g., vesting milestones, plan updates).
• Employee Communication: Tools for HR to communicate with employees regarding their ESOPs.
   

Stellar Integrations
Custom Tokens: Issue custom tokens on Stellar to represent ESOP shares for organisation, Stellar's CreateAccount for new employee accounts, ChangeTrust & Payment operations for distributing tokens.

Stellar Consensus Protocols (SCP): Use SCP’s fast and secure transaction protocol to handle the exercise of stock options efficiently.
Anchors: Integrate with Stellar anchors to facilitate fiat on/off-ramps, enabling employees to convert their ESOP tokens to fiat currency seamlessly.

Stellar Ecosystem Proposals (SEPs): Implement SEPs such as SEP-6 (Deposit and Withdrawal API) to streamline the process of converting tokens to fiat and vice versa, enhancing liquidity for employees.

Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs): for Liquidity Events: Facilitate buybacks or secondary sales of ESOP shares by integrating with Stellar-based DEXs, providing employees with options to liquidate their shares.

Soroban Smart Contracts:

• Automated Issuance: Smart contracts can automate the issuance of grant letters and ESOPs tokens based on predefined eligibility criteria, ensuring timely and accurate documentation on blockchain with Immutable records.
• Automated Vesting: Smart contracts can manage vesting schedules automatically, updating the status when conditions are met 
• Automated Exercising Calculations: Smart contracts can handle calculations of exercise prices and verify conditions for exercising options with Real-Time Execution and recording on blockchain.
• Compliance Management: Smart contracts can enforce restrictions like blackout periods and insider trading compliance automatically.

Why choose stellar?

Stellar is chosen for its speed, cost-efficiency, and robust features for asset issuance and management. Its decentralized and secure network guarantees the integrity of the ESOP platform. Stellar's native support for issuing and managing assets, coupled with its compliance capabilities, aligns perfectly with the requirements of an ESOP management system.

Phase 1: Initial Development (1.5 - 2 months)

Estimated Budget: $20,000

• UI/UX Design: Wireframes, mockups, user flow diagrams
• System Design: Requirements and architecture diagrams
• Blockchain Integrations & Smart Contract Development: Stellar integration, smart contracts, SEP-10 authentication
• Backend Development: Backend infrastructure, APIs, testing
• Frontend Development: Frontend interfaces, API integration, UAT

Phase 2: Advanced Features and Optimization (3-4 months)

Estimated Budget: $50,000

• Advanced Feature Development: Analytics, reporting, customizable ESOP plans
• Security and Compliance Enhancements: Security measures, compliance
• Performance Optimization: Performance and scalability optimization
• Expansion to Other Equity Management Areas: Features for general equity management, stock options
• Integration with Payroll Systems: Building integrations with popular payroll systems

Phase 3: Scaling and Market Expansion (4-6 months)

Estimated Budget: $80,000

• User Acquisition and Marketing Campaigns
• Partnership Development
• Customer Support and Training Programs

Mansi Singhai

Mansi Singhai brings over 2 years of experience in the financial technology sector. As a Software Developer at a leading fintech bank Wells Fargo, she has a proven track record of developing and scaling innovative financial products. Mansi holds an M. Tech. in Robotics & B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. She is passionate about leveraging blockchain technology to drive financial innovation.
Linkedin: mansisinghai1999

Saumya Pandey

Saumya Pandey is a proficient backend developer with over 3 years of experience in building robust and scalable backend systems. He has a strong background in server-side development and database management, contributing significantly to the development of secure and efficient platforms. At LTIMindtree, a leading Information Technology Services & Consulting firm in India, he has developed & led the development of various complex products. Additionally, Saumya holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Acropolis Engineering Institute, Indore.
Linkedin: saumya7373/

Total Budget: $20000 XLM

[Deliverable 1] UI/UX Design

Brief Description: Design the user interface and user experience for the platform, focusing on ease of use, accessibility, and a modern look and feel while ensuring secure and efficient interactions with blockchain features.

How to Measure Completion:

• Completion of wireframes, mockups with Usability testing results showing user satisfaction.
• Finalized design assets delivered for frontend development.

Estimated Date of Completion: Week 3

Budget: $3,500

[Deliverable 2] System Design

Brief Description: Develop a detailed system design document that includes functional requirements, non-functional requirements, high-level architecture, and low-level architecture. This serves as the blueprint for the development and ensures alignment with business goals and technical feasibility.

How to Measure Completion:

• Completion of document covering all aspects of the system including integration points, data flow diagrams, and security considerations.

Estimated Date of Completion: Week 3

Budget: $3,500

[Deliverable 3] Blockchain Integrations & Smart Contract Development

Brief Description: Develop and deploy soroban smart contracts for automated grant & letter issuance, vesting schedules, exercise request handling, and transaction execution & recording.

How to Measure Completion:

• Successful deployment of smart contracts on the Stellar testnet.
• Test cases covering all smart contract functionalities passing successfully.

Estimated Date of Completion: Week 4

Budget: $5,000

[Deliverable 4] Backend Development

Brief Description: Develop the backend infrastructure to support the Artemezya platform, including API development, database management, and integration with Stellar blockchain.

How to Measure Completion:

• Backend APIs implemented and tested.
• Integration tests with smart contracts and blockchain components.
• Performance and security tests passed.

Estimated Date of Completion: Week 6

Budget: $4,000

[Deliverable 5] Frontend Development & API Integrations

Brief Description: Develop the frontend application that interacts with the backend services and smart contracts. This includes implementing the employee portal, admin portal, communication tools and other user-facing features.

How to Measure Completion:

• Frontend features implemented and integrated with backend services.
• User acceptance testing passed.
• Responsive design and cross-browser compatibility ensured.

Estimated Date of Completion: Week 8

Budget: $4,000