Carta

Market position

Carta describes itself as the connected global platform for private capital and reports that 85% of US unicorns use a Carta cap table and that 80% of VC-backed companies rely on it for 409A valuations. Business Insider previously described the company as "the NASDAQ for private companies" in reference to CartaX. Reported valuation fell below $2 billion in 2024, about 75% down from its 2022 peak.

Carta emphasizes end-to-end consolidation—cap table, valuations, equity compensation, fund administration, fund tax, and legal/compliance sharing one data set—plus network effects from having companies, investors, and advisors on the same system, in-house expert services, and AI/agentic tooling integrated into customer workflows.

Technology

Cloud-based equity and fund operations software that digitizes stock certificates, options, warrants, and derivatives; dynamic cap tables; proprietary software supporting 409A valuation delivery; and AI/agentic capabilities including context-aware monitoring, process automation, and Carta Plugins that connect live Carta data to Claude for querying books, scenario modeling, and workflow automation.

Go-to-market

Direct sales via demo requests on its website, self-described network effects across the private-markets ecosystem (companies, investors, and their advisors on the same platform), content and data marketing through research reports and educational guides, and distribution partnerships with Morgan Stanley at Work, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, and NYSE. An earlier initiative, Carta Ventures (announced February 2020), offered to lead or co-lead seed rounds for founding teams building adjacent products with access to Carta's APIs, office space, and customer base.

Venture-backed startups and their founders and employees, private companies, venture capital and private equity funds and SPVs, limited partners, and accounting and advisory firms. Named or cited customers include Slack, Calendly, Affirm, and logos displayed on the website such as Airtable, Notion, Brex, Uncork Capital, Base10, and Grant Thornton.

Geography

Headquartered at 333 Bush Street, San Francisco, California. Serves customers in more than 160 countries with 1,900+ employees across 15 locations: San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Sandy (Utah), Santa Clara, Hamilton Township (New Jersey), Washington DC, Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto in Canada, Rio de Janeiro, London, Abu Dhabi (regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority), Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney.

History

eShares was founded in August 2012 and launched 409A valuations as a second product in March 2014. It raised a $17 million Series B led by Spark Capital in August 2015, partnered with Zenefits in October 2016, and acquired Silicon Valley Bank's valuation business (Silicon Valley Bank Analytics) on September 1, 2017. In October 2017 it raised a $42 million Series C led by Menlo Ventures and Social Capital, and in November 2017 rebranded from eShares to Carta, a name inspired by the Magna Carta. Fund Administration launched in April 2018; a $80 million Series D at an $800 million valuation followed in December 2018, and a $300 million Series E at $1.7 billion led by Andreessen Horowitz in May 2019. A Series F in 2020 valued the company at $3.1 billion. CartaX launched in January 2021 and was shut down in 2024. Carta acquired London-based equity management platforms Vauban and Capdesk in June and August/September 2022, acquired fund forecasting company Tactyc in October 2024, announced an exclusive partnership with Morgan Stanley at Work in November 2024, named NYSE its preferred listing venue for private companies in September 2025, and acquired Avantia while launching Carta Law in May 2026.

Risks & controversies

Wikipedia documents several employment-related disputes: a July 2020 lawsuit by former marketing executive Emily Kramer alleging gender discrimination, retaliation, and violation of the California Equal Pay Act; New York Times coverage in August 2020 of alleged mistreatment of employees; and an October 2023 suit by former employee Alexandra Rogers alleging she was groped by Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Perry at a June 2022 work event, settled in 2025 as the fourth public discrimination-related case the company had settled since 2023. A 2020 hire from UBS was tasked with addressing what she described as a "toxic, boys club" culture. The CartaX private stock exchange was shut down in 2024 following a customer data scandal, and the company's valuation was reported in 2024 to have fallen below $2 billion, roughly 75% off its 2022 peak.