For Gire Mobility, a logistics service for the automotive industry operating in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, the need for structure and control became clear as the company grew. With 30 employees, four funding rounds and employees in several countries, Unlisted has become a crucial tool for corporate governance and option programs.
Petter Hodne Steensland, CEO and co-founder of Gire, started the company in 2019 after helping to build and sell a car damage chain. Gire has since grown rapidly and has established local sales teams in all four markets, with a tech team and head office centralized in Oslo.
Gire's ownership structure is divided between employees and entrepreneurs on the one hand, and professional investors on the other. The investment side includes Møller Mobility Group, Semler Gruppen (Denmark), Schibsted Ventures and Startuplab. – “The ownership structure is now aligned with our long-term goals. All option programs work, simply and smoothly, via Unlisted,” says Steensland.
As the company grew, Gire began creating options programs without a full understanding of how it should be done. “We hadn’t operationalized it. A lot of it was done in Excel, and we were creating a new cap table every time it was going to be shown.”
Steensland says that the main motivation for using Unlisted was to gain control over options, access to good templates, and avoid mistakes. “Unlisted helped us not to oversell or undersell our programs.”
Since its implementation, Unlisted has led to:
“The most important thing for us is that things are right. If you don't get this right, you can mess things up with people's compensation, and that's the last thing we want.”
Unlisted has also changed how Gire interacts with both investors and employees. More members of the management team and team have access to the platform, and investors are presented with a clear and professional ownership picture. “It’s easy to operate. I don’t have to bring in an advisor every time we need to make a change.”
Steensland is clear that Unlisted should have been in place much earlier: “People don’t know what mistakes they make. It’s really expensive to clean up later. Unlisted simply puts things in order.”
Unlisted will be part of Gire videre. The platform helps create transparency and trust, both internally and externally. “It helps us attract good employees and build a culture of ownership.”
For Gire Mobility, Unlisted is not just a tool, but a prerequisite for growing structured, avoiding mistakes and ensuring that both employees and investors have confidence in the processes.
