The Exchanges

Q All right, fair enough. Let's dive deeper into that. 20 22, you launched Ledge. Are you sole co-founder? Did you raise on day one? What did the initial sort of cap table look like?

A So, I have a co-founder, a software CTO, who's a phenomenal engineering leader. Spent some time in the Israeli Defense Forces as well. Worked at larger companies like Intel and Checkpoint, and then actually joined a few Israeli startups. Rose all the way up through the ranks, eventually becoming VPR&D at a few Israeli companies, as well as an Israeli unicorn. So found the company with, together with Asaf. We started out raising capital towards the tail end of 22, when there were concerns about a potential recession, and it was a fairly abrupt I'd say change in atmosphere and sentiment going from the craziest of days early on in 22 to a lot of concern towards the tail end of that year, which is when we started the company when we raised our seed fund. We had, uh, I'd say a lot of luck in finding a great partner for us, uh, with new enterprise associates, NEA, and specifically we teamed up with, at the time, a partner who knew a lot about About what it was that we were building, having spent time as an operator himself at Airbnb building a lot of the financial kind of backbone and infrastructure there. And so the fit that we had with him was tremendous, and we were quite fortunate, I think, in that regard.

AI assessment note: “I have a co-founder... We started out raising capital towards the tail end of 22”

Q Take us forward to ledge. When did you guys write the first line of code for the software?

A So about three years ago, ledge, it's origin actually started with Melio. Melio is a payments company, um, that experienced some, some challenges on its own, but actually had the ability to solve those challenges because, uh, It's a very sophisticated company. Its engineering team is, I'd say, very capable of generating any type of internal infrastructure that they may need that pertains specifically, not just to payments, but to finance, to banking, to data, uh, flows that are related to that in general. So Amelia was able to develop that infrastructure internally. I noticed that other companies as well struggle with the exact same issues. But don't have the relevant know-how, uh, required to develop a similar internal solution. And even if they're able to bring in that knowledge in-house, it is way outside of their core competency. And therefore, they should probably not go through the built route. And that really led us to, uh, to, to ledge.

AI assessment note: “So about three years ago, ledge, it's origin actually started with Melio.”

Q So I want to get in, obviously, to the growth story, how I came up with the idea, the launch, and how you got to where you are today. Before we do that, though, give me some context. Somebody listening today, if they were going to sign up to Ledge, what's your average customer paying you per month or per year today?

A You know, it's a few thousand dollars per month. It's a monthly SaaS fee. We are not a seat Based solution. We, uh, we think that in this day and age, we're helping teams become leader and much more effective. We're helping teams be able to support a scaling business without necessarily having to scale the size of the finance team. And so the way that pricing for us is built is really around the complexity of the business, more entities, currencies, distribution channel, a business has to have. Generally speaking, our price point is going to be higher, but aside from that, it really is about how can we help them Those teams become much more efficient, and how can we essentially get them to a place where some of their engineering colleagues are in today? Being able to leverage AI to run the most time-consuming, repetitive tasks that they deal with, and really be able to shift their focus, uh, to be more of guiders in this process back at the place where everyone joined finance wanting to be, which is a strategic thought partner to the business.

AI assessment note: “it's a few thousand dollars per month. It's a monthly SaaS fee.”

Q Okay, very cool. Let's give the backstory here. You're right, you come from consulting, you come from Meta M&A, you come from payments. How do sort of all these, you know, genetic lineages of you sort of result in ledge?

A Uh, it actually starts with the actual genetic lineage in my specific case. I grew up in an environment that, um, values entrepreneurship to a massive extent, and I always say I I don't have any other option. I've never had any other option aside from being an entrepreneur. In every job interview I've ever had in my life, people would always ask me, what's the end game? And I would always say it's eventually to do my own thing. And so I view the different steps in my professional career as ones leading up to my entrepreneurial venture and as ones that are able to, to To better equip me to deliver against that endgame in my specific case.

AI assessment note: “I view the different steps in my professional career as ones leading up to”

Q joined, I believe, in 2020 when they only had, I think, the series A done. Maybe the series B was just closing for forty eight million. But the majority of the growth, it sounds like, happened after you joined. You gave up a lot to go into Ledge. What Made you sort of jump ship, and can you quantify maybe how much you gave up to go bet on ledge?

A I can. Melio was recently acquired by Xero, the European company, and so it was, you know, I think a great acquisition by Xero and a great outcome for shareholders at Melio, um, and so as, as, as part of that, you can't help but going through the exercise, the exercise of the value of the equity, the unvested options that you gave up, but again, I think for myself, I left Melio at a time When I couldn't think of anything else but Ledge and the idea behind it. And I was very fortunate to have the support of the founders at the company at Melio, who, by the way, also invested in Ledge personally as angels. Oh, and we're also very close. We, uh, do our off sites at their office as an example. And so for me, it was, it really was about a specific point in time when, uh, my co-founder and I identified an opportunity that we Just couldn't ignore.

AI assessment note: “I left Melio at a time When I couldn't think of anything else”

Q usually we used to be able to bet on net dollar retention, and churn was low, We are seeing less and less allegiance from B to B buyers to any software product. Churn is just generally higher with these AI tools. How are you building a moat at ledge so that when Claude releases their next announcement, you're not replaced by their B to B ERP automatic NetSuite closing tool?

A Great question. And one that we think through often, I think it comes down to two key things. So first of all, when it comes to ensuring retention, reducing attrition of churn, It really has to do with the value that you're able to provide, and one of the things that we optimize for now, as far as our sales cycle and sales process, rather, is we want to make sure that someone is interested in the solution because they see the value that it can provide, and that is what excites them, rather than, than, than having maybe, um, some, some, some dollars to spend that have been earmarked for AI. And I think in that specific case that can definitely lead to a much higher risk of attrition. So I think that's the first kind of element of it and how we like to think of things.

AI assessment note: “when it comes to ensuring retention, reducing attrition of churn, It really has to do”