Alkemio

How Alkemio uses a dutch foundation structure to reward both capital and time contributions

 

In a nutshell

Many founders are faced with a dilemma in their early founding days – how to attract top talent while money is still tight? While some opt for schemes like ESOPs or similar equity compensations for early employees, not all of these remuneration models align with stewardownership frameworks

Alkemio, a purpose-driven organization based in the Netherlands with the mission to facilitate collaboration among changemakers through a digital platform, found a way to reward both financial backers as well as employees contributing their time within a steward-ownership framework. But let’s start at the beginning.

Frustrated about the lack of progress collaborating on COVID-related challenges, co-founders Neil Smyth and René Honig founded Alkemio in 2020 in the Netherlands. “We believed that there must be a better and faster way of working together to make progress, especially in regards to the many fast-moving challenges in our lives”, Neil recounts. "We rely on digital platforms for numerous aspects of our lives, be it for transportation, connecting with customers, or booking hotels. So, why not employ them to tackle complex issues?“

Neil Smyth and René Honig both have an international background with careers in bridging the tech and business worlds. Together they gathered a community of partners and built an organization to develop Alkemio as an open source SaaS-platform, alkem.io.

The challenges that are tackled on the platform are very diverse. For instance, the city of The Hague supports an inclusive labor market or the company Velokonzept is bringing stakeholders together to expand the sustainable cycling industry in Berlin.

Alkemio was set up as a single-entity foundation in 2020. However, it turned out very soon that a single entity structure would not be sufficient to safeguard Alkemio’s purpose, raise capital and at the same time attract top talent.

In 2022, steward-ownership was identified as a governance form appropriate to address these concerns. Neil and René wanted to create a structure that would a) keep the leadership purpose-driven, and choose new leaders meritocratically, b) safeguard the venture through a veto share and c) be able to give out capped economic rights without having to give up voting power. It also had to be simple.

To achieve these goals, Alkemio opted for a Veto Share model and evolved the legal setup to a multiple-entity structure with a new child entity. The whole structure would be steward-owned.