The challenge
When Louis Vaillant joined Quantune as Founder's Associate seven months ago, the company was already live on GAIA. Before GAIA, contracts had been managed through a combination of Word documents and DocuSign, with no central system connecting the pieces. When employee details changed, someone had to manually update each document. When an NDA needed sending, the team had to find the right version in a folder, copy in the relevant details, and hope nothing got missed. Finance and HR both touched the same contracts, but worked from different places.
The trigger for change was the opportunity to implement the German Employee Incentive Program under §19a EStG, a benefit that required proper infrastructure to administer correctly. With the EIP on the horizon and contract complexity growing, a spreadsheet and a generic e-signature tool were no longer enough.
How GAIA helped
One source of truth across contracts and HR. The most immediate impact was consolidation. With GAIA's Personio integration, employee data flows directly into contracts, no manual copying, no version confusion, no risk of outdated details making it into a signed document. "Before, everything was done via a separate Word file, then copied from email," Louis explains. "Now we change it in one place and it cascades everywhere."
For a small, fast-moving team, that reliability changes how people work. "I have one platform where I can look, where the data I can trust is right there, and I have only this one single place to check. It's a huge increase in productivity, otherwise I'm constantly asking: is this the last version? Is this outdated?"
Templates with legal confidence. A recurring pain point for early-stage companies is contract consistency, documents sent frequently, often in slightly different versions, and rarely reviewed by a lawyer each time. GAIA's template library changed that dynamic for Quantune. "We have one single template we stick to. If we need minor adjustments we can make them, but otherwise it's just done, and we feel secure because it comes with legal guidance." The result is both faster turnaround and higher quality. "You don't need a lawyer explicitly to tell you it's valid. It's protected. It's done right."
The foundation for equity management. Quantune rolls out its §19a EIP to employees after six months at the company. Having GAIA already in place as the contract and HR backbone means the equity layer has a reliable foundation to build on: employee data is accurate, documents are centralized, and the team doesn't need to scramble to get organized before each grant cycle. Working closely with the CEO on the EIP rollout, Louis sees the appeal clearly, from a risk-reward perspective, the §19a structure offers employees meaningful protection and upside that goes beyond a traditional VSOP.
Results
The picture is clear: less time spent on manual document work, fewer errors from data being out of sync, and a team that can handle contracts independently without routing everything through a single person. "I now have all the context points in one place," Louis says. "Having all this paperwork in one space and not through different folders, that's the biggest value I get out of the tool."
The Personio integration in particular has removed a whole category of manual work. When an employee updates their details, that change propagates automatically, no one has to remember to update the contract.
Working with GAIA
Louis rates the support experience a 10 out of 10. When Quantune needed templates adapted to their specific requirements, turnaround was same-day. And when their account manager changed, the quality of service didn't skip a beat. "Even when we switched internally, it was just as fast and just as accurate. That's exactly what you want, continuity in the relationship even when people change."
What Louis would tell a peer
After seven months of using GAIA as the operational backbone for contracts, HR, and equity at an early-stage startup, Louis's recommendation is straightforward:
