Common Trust helps small-business owners design, finance and execute employee ownership buyouts so owners or investors can access liquidity by exiting to employees. The company uses a customized perpetual purpose trust—an employee ownership trust—to enable businesses to become employee-owned and remain independent. Founded in 2022 by Zoe Schlag and Derek Razo, the team drew on experience in the shared-ownership space at Schmidt Futures and Purpose Foundation. In its first year Common Trust has worked with dozens of business owners, management teams and investors. One customer, family-owned Clegg Auto, doubled profits, recorded its highest customer service ratings and shared record profit-sharing with employees in the first year after transition. Common Trust positions employee ownership as a scalable, lower-cost alternative to brokered or private-equity sales for the large cohort of small businesses expected to seek buyers over the next decade; it raised a seed round to support that work.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Sep 2023