Today's paper-based system regarding share certificates has long been considered obsolete in relation to the technical development that characterizes an otherwise digital market. Especially in relation to the inconveniences the system is associated with for limited liability companies, as well as for the shareholders.  Despite it being a known fact, no changes have been made in cases where amendments to the law have been discussed through official government reports. The solutions presented in the reports have been either an implementation of a share register or an extended function of the share ledger, both requiring the abolishment of share certificates. The opinion yet remained that the positive aspects of the paper-based share certificate system overweighed the negative ones due to technological shortcomings. However, in light of recent development in modern technology, a solution might be found in blockchain technology. The overall question of this thesis is thus to what extent the paper-based system raises problems and whether satisfactory solutions can be found in new technology. In order to present effective and competitive solutions, the thesis looks beyond the national boarders, towards foreign judicial system to find alternative ways of handling the issue of share certificates. Through the international perspective, blockchain technology is presented as a potential solution. In order to assess its compatibility with the Swedish judicial system a short introduction is made regarding the underlying technology. This also helps create an understanding of its pioneering nature. The technical introduction is then followed by a theoretical application of a blockchain-based solution for handling the share certificates as well as the share ledger. This leads to the conclusion that a potential solution is found in blockchain technology which, combined with the overall assessment of the negative aspects of a paper-based system, advocates for a reform.

Capitalization table (cap table) is a public ledger that tracks the equity ownership of a company’s shareholders. For start-up and non-public companies this information is usually stored in a spreadsheet but even after just a couple of investment rounds the cap table can become highly complex. A factor that further increases the complexity is the need for entrepreneurs and investors to use the data for analysis and calculations for future decision making. The purpose of the thesis has been to create a design hypotheses of a usable graphical user interface that allows shareholders to more clearly understand the ownership situation of the company and future scenario. To answer the research question a user-centered design approach along with a case study was applied. The case study was chosen and performed on a start-up that already offers a web service for better management of corporation documents so that real users could be part of the design process and so that their needs could be analysed. After three iterations, an end result (implemented in AngularJS and TypeScript) was obtained, which can be split into two equal parts. Firstly, a view containing a timeline of the company and its current ownership. The view can also be used to get a snapshot of the company’s ownership in a specific point in time and to simulate how future investment rounds could dilute the current shareholder’s ownership. Secondly, a view where users can simulate future exit scenarios and how much each shareholder will earn in an exit.