Before Aqua Security discovered Slice, managing equity was a fragile, time-consuming, and increasingly complicated process.

Like many high-growth companies, Aqua was relying on a mix of disconnected tools, spreadsheets, outdated platforms, and overly complex systems that never quite worked the way they needed.

‍“There was never a single source of truth” Said Ornit Stern, Senior Director of Finance at Aqua Security.

Reporting required manual reconciliation. Grant letters were issued one at a time. And only one person in the entire organization truly understood how to operate their previous equity management platform.

It wasn’t scalable. It wasn’t collaborative. And it certainly wasn’t built for a company scaling as fast as Aqua. Equity had become a bottleneck, one that drained time, introduced risk, and pulled the team's focus away from more strategic and growth-critical initiatives.

Before Slice: Fragmented, Manual, and Risk-Prone

The cracks in Aqua Security’s equity management process weren’t sudden, but emerged over time, growing more and more obvious as they scaled.

Each platform change was meant to fix the last, but instead of solving the problem, it only shifted the pain elsewhere and put unnecessary pressure on a single person to keep everything running.‍

Excel: Where It All Began

Aqua’s equity management journey began where it does for many companies: with Excel. The team at Aqua used Excel to manage their cap table and track exercises, but its limitations quickly became clear.

Excel lacked proper formatting and required constant manual updates that contributed to a fragmented process that introduced compliance risks.

What was meant to be a simple solution quickly became a liability. Excel simply wasn’t built to handle something as critical or complex as equity.

‍Legacy Platform #1: A Short-Lived Upgrade

Looking to bring more structure to the process, Aqua moved on to Legacy Platform #1. Initially, it felt like a step up from spreadsheets. The interface was more polished, and the platform seemed to offer the promise of automation and better organization.

But the improvement didn’t last.

The platform was unstable, prone to bugs and, more importantly, had unreliable reporting. The team constantly needed to cross-check numbers to confirm accuracy, which brought them right back to square one, spending hours reviewing data they had hoped to automate.

“We couldn’t rely on the numbers coming out of the system,” said Ornit Stern, Senior Director of Finance at Aqua Security. “We had to double-check everything, which completely defeated the purpose of using a platform like this.”

And as trust in the platform deteriorated, so did its usefulness.

Legacy Platform #2: More Robust, But Too Complex

In search of a more powerful and trust worthy platform, Aqua turned to Legacy Platform #2. On paper, it checked the right boxes: strong compliance, robust infrastructure, and a reputation for supporting late-stage companies.

In reality, however, it brought an entirely new kind of friction.

The system was complex and difficult to navigate. Generating reports meant pulling data from multiple locations and manually stitching it together, an error-prone and time-consuming process.

And the steep learning curve to use the platform meant that adoption across the company was almost nonexistent.

Even everyday workflows like issuing grant letters remained manual and overly complex for anyone outside the VP of Finance. And because no one else on the team felt comfortable using the system, Ornit was left managing everything herself.

“It was just too complicated. Other leaders wouldn’t use it at all,” said Ornit.

Despite trying three different platforms, Aqua remained stuck with a fragmented, error-prone system that relied too heavily on one person to function.

The Catalyst for Change: Operational Fragility

As the sole owner of the equity management platform, Ornit was the only one who truly understood how to operate Legacy Platform #2. The platform was complex, unintuitive, and intimidating for anyone who hadn’t spent time learning its ins and outs.

So when Ornit began planning for her maternity leave, a hard truth became unavoidable: the company had no backup plan for one of its most important financial systems.

The need for coverage in Ornit’s absence quickly uncovered a serious operational risk.

Aqua had outgrown a model where only one person could manage their equity. They needed a system that others could step into confidently, without hand-holding or weeks of training.

The team didn’t want to sacrifice capability. Legacy Platform #2 offered robust compliance features and infrastructure, and those needs hadn’t changed. But the platform had to be more usable, something that combined the trust and rigor of Legacy Platform #2 with the ease of use and broader adoption they’d once hoped to get from Legacy Platform #1.‍

They needed a platform that worked and one the whole team could use confidently.

Choosing Slice: A Platform Built for Scale, Trust, and Usability

When it came time to find a better solution, Aqua Security approached the search with clear priorities. They didn’t need another tool that looked good on the surface but fell apart in daily use.

They needed a platform that could scale with the business, empower more people across the organization, and finally replace the patchwork of unreliable systems they had outgrown.

They evaluated their options, but quickly realized that many tools in the market were too limited in functionality.

“There was no real logic or automation behind it, just a nice UI wrapped around manual processes,” said Ornit Stern, Senior Director of Finance at Aqua Security. “We needed something smarter.”

What made Slice stand out was how all the pieces worked together. The platform offered end-to-end functionality, intuitive design, and true system-wide coherence. It addressed Aqua’s core needs in a way no other solution had.

Their Evaluation Criteria

• Ease of Use: Something everyone could adopt, not just the finance team. Aqua’s top priority was usability. After years of working with systems that required deep expertise and constant support, they needed a platform that was self-service, intuitive, and approachable for non-finance users.
  
• Single Source of Truth: No more manual reconciliation or cross-referencing.
  Fragmented data and report inconsistencies had been a constant pain point. Aqua was managing exercises in one system, tracking grants in another, and using Excel to fill in the gaps. The result? Confusion, duplication, and an ongoing need to manually reconcile every report.
  
• End-to-End Functionality: From grant letters to cap table management, all in one system.
  Beyond visibility, Aqua needed a platform that could automate the work. From generating and managing grant letters to handling exercises, integrations, and reporting, Slice offered comprehensive tools within a single environment. No more bouncing between systems. No more stitching data together. Everything lived in one place, by design.

While Aqua’s top priorities were usability, centralization, and end-to-end functionality, Slice delivered added value with features like HRIS integration, automated compliance alerts, and centralized document storage. All of this combined meant the decision to move forward was clear.

‍Migrating to Slice: From Vendor to True Partner

For most companies, switching equity platforms sounds like a nightmare. And after struggling through a four-month implementation with Legacy Platform #2, Aqua Security had every reason to expect the same.

But with Slice, that fear disappeared almost immediately.

“With Legacy Platform #2, it took four months before we could even use the platform. With Slice, we were fully up and running in just one month and it was intuitive from day one,” said Ornit Stern, Senior Director of Finance at Aqua Security.

Aqua wasn’t handed a to-do list, our team took ownership of the process from day one. Offering a true white-glove onboarding experience that not only handled the migration, but also flagged and fixed long-standing issues the Aqua team didn’t even know existed.

The Onboarding Experience

• Data Reconciliation, Done for You
  Legacy issues? Inconsistencies across reports? Slice handled all of it, cleaning up years of fragmented data so Aqua could start fresh with a reconciled and audit-ready cap table.
  
• Seamless, Painless Migration
  The transition happened fast and without disruption. Aqua’s account on the Slice platform was fully operational within a month.
  
• Hands-On, Human Support
  Slice took full ownership of onboarding, acting as an extension of Aqua’s team and turning what could have been a burden into a seamless, guided process.

Life with Slice: Peace of Mind, Efficiency, and Autonomy

Today, Aqua Security’s equity management looks nothing like it did before. What was once fragmented, manual, and high-risk is now centralized, automated, and easy to manage across the business.

Key Benefits

• ‍Peace of Mind: It helps us know what we don’t know. Slice’s built-in global equity compliance alerts flag risks before they escalate and often before the team even knows they exist. But the value doesn’t stop at automation. Every Slice account is supported by a dedicated Customer Success Manager who helps interpret those alerts and guide the team through next steps. “It helps us know what we don’t know.” -  Ornit Stern, Senior Director of Finance at Aqua Security. That combination of proactive alerts and expert human support gives Aqua the peace of mind knowing that nothing is slipping through the cracks.‍
• Efficiency: What used to take days now takes minutes. With Slice, Aqua replaced time-consuming manual tasks with automated, integrated workflows. Grant letters are generated directly in the platform. Reports are deeply auditable and export-ready in seconds. And thanks to Slice’s integration with HiBob, employee data syncs automatically, eliminating hours of duplicate data entry and reducing room for error.‍
• Cost Savings: We used to pay thousands of dollars for this. Before Slice, understanding global equity compliance often meant incurring legal fees for answers they previously had to pay for. With Slice, Aqua now gets built-in compliance support that helps the team navigate local requirements confidently, without defaulting to outside legal help for every question around global equity. Automated logic, real-time alerts, and clear workflows make it easy to self-serve where they used to outsource.‍
• Empowerment: Before Slice, equity management was something only the finance team touched and others avoided due to the complicated interface. The systems were too complex, and the process was fragmented and inefficient, creating operational challenges and risks. Now, that’s changed. Leaders across the business can confidently navigate the platform, pull reports, and access the data they need without relying solely on one person.

Parting Wisdom: Advice for Anyone Struggling with Equity Management

When asked what they would tell their peers, Aqua Security’s response was immediate and clear:

“Stop what you’re doing and move to Slice. It’s all in one place. It’s easy to use. And you’re not alone you have a great team supporting you.”

For companies still stuck in fragmented systems, struggling with adoption, or relying too heavily on one person to manage equity, Ornit’s message is clear: you don’t have to keep doing it the hard way.

See what a modern, reliable, and true equity management platform looks like.

Request a demo from Slice and see how we make managing global equity safe, simple, and scalable.