Burrow's Efficient Growth and Diligence

Have you ever tried to wrestle a sectional couch into the back of a car? Dreaded moving because you had no idea how you were going to handle all of your bulky-but-valuable furniture? 

Stephen Kuhl and Kabeer Chopra understand that pain, and in an entrepreneurship class, set out to alleviate it for as many people as they could. 

The result was Burrow. By using modular design, they made their furniture easier to assemble and disassemble. By shipping directly, they made those designs more affordable. And by considering the details, things like adding USB ports directly into their couches, they made pieces that fit into customer's lives as readily as they fit into their living rooms. 

Stephen and Kabeer came up with a more modern way to handle furniture. It's no surprise, then, that they would be drawn to a more modern way to handle equity.

When Chief Financial Officer Kelley Hicks joined the Burrow team in December of 2019, it was her third startup, so she was well-attenuated to how to handle their needs. Burrow had raised over $30 million, making it clear to Kelley that it was time for specialized software to manage equity.

The first platform that Burrow used was essentially just a cap table. While it was able to handle surface-level equity responsibilities, the usefulness ended there; with little in-platform guidance and a lack of deeper functionality, it failed to provide the value that Burrow was looking for.

It was time to make a change. Kelley was looking for a platform that would provide real value, reduce the company's risk, and increase Burrow's attractiveness to investors. On the suggestion of a colleague, she started looking into Fidelity Private Shares, and felt like it would provide what she needed: more than just a cap table. 

During the diligence for Burrow's Series B, she was pulling late nights pulling together documents, organizing a data room, and trying to hunt down signatures. Fidelity Private Shares would provide an opportunity to use an equity management platform that did all of that work automatically, so she could actually focus on value-creating work.

Burrow started its Series B extension just before joining Fidelity Private Shares, and used the platform to finish it. The difference between the two experiences was significant. While the beginning of the process was bogged down by tracking down signatures, marshaling documents and general inefficiency, everything got notably better upon making the switch. Thanks to workflows in the platform, it was easier to contact key stakeholders, grant shares, and see all of that data automatically collected and updated. 

Regarding the process, Kelley has just one lament: "I wish I had done it all on [Fidelity Private Shares]." While the strong equity management capabilities drew Burrow to Fidelity Private Shares, Kelley soon realized that it was the breadth of the platform that made those capabilities possible. In addition to granting shares and keeping the cap table updated, Burrow has also transferred stock, issued board consents, converted stock certificates, closed additional financing, kept track of board meeting minutes, and collated everything automatically in the data room.

With all of these capabilities-and more-integrated into the equity workflows, Kelley knows that Fidelity Private Shares can work to provide whatever Burrow may need. "I really feel like I got hands-on, direct knowledge. There's nothing I need that [Fidelity Private Shares] doesn't have."