Carta

Carta is the equity management platform that became the default tool for startup cap table management, founded in 2012 by Henry Ward and Manu Kumar (originally as eShares) in Palo Alto. Now serving 40,000+ companies, 7,000+ funds, and 2M+ shareholders globally, Carta handles the unglamorous-but-critical work of equity administration: cap tables, 409A valuations, ESOPs, vesting schedules, employee equity grants, secondary transactions, fund admin. If you've raised a priced round in the past decade, there's an overwhelming chance your cap table lives in Carta. What made Carta dominant was solving an actual painful problem: pre-Carta, cap tables lived in Excel spreadsheets that got out of sync, didn't model dilution properly, and required expensive lawyers to maintain. Carta replaced that chaos with software that handles the math, syncs with stakeholders, generates legal documents, and integrates with the broader investor + fund admin ecosystem. The product has expanded significantly since the early years — Carta now competes across cap table management, 409A valuations, fund administration, equity exercise + trading, and lately employee compensation benchmarking. The core features for startups: • **Cap table management** — real-time cap table with multi-round dilution modeling, scenario planning, waterfall analysis • **409A valuations** — Carta provides 409A valuations (required for setting strike prices on employee options) directly • **Employee equity grants** — issue stock options + RSUs + restricted stock to employees with electronic acceptance • **Vesting + cliff tracking** — automatic tracking of vesting schedules, cliff dates, post-termination exercise periods • **Stakeholder portal** — employees + investors see their equity holdings in one place • **Option exercise** — employees can exercise options through Carta with help on tax implications • **SAFE + convertible note tracking** — manage SAFEs and convertibles between priced rounds • **Document generation** — generate stock option agreements, board consents, signature workflows • **Compensation benchmarking** — Carta Compensation (newer product) provides salary + equity benchmarks across stage • **Secondary transactions** — facilitate employee secondary sales and tender offers • **Fund administration** — for VC funds: portfolio management, LP reporting, fund accounting For founders the use cases: • **Post-priced-round cap table** — Carta is essentially required once you've raised a priced round (Series Seed/A onwards) • **Issuing employee equity** — option grants and RSUs to early employees with electronic acceptance • **409A valuations** — required annually after raising; Carta handles end-to-end vs hiring separate valuation firms • **Pre-IPO secondary transactions** — facilitate employee secondaries to provide liquidity to early hires • **Equity refresh grants** — additional grants to existing employees with proper tax treatment • **Fundraising data room** — share clean cap table with prospective investors • **M&A or IPO prep** — having clean Carta-maintained records dramatically reduces deal friction The pricing varies by company stage. Carta Launch (pre-revenue startups) starts free for cap table management of up to 25 stakeholders. Growth pricing tiers based on stakeholder count + product modules — typical Series A startup pays $3,000-$10,000/year. 409A valuations are billed separately at $1,000-$3,000 per valuation. The pricing has been controversial — Carta has raised prices significantly post-Series B for many customers, leading to migrations to alternatives like Pulley and AngelList Stack. Where Carta wins clearly: it's the de facto industry standard — investors, accountants, and lawyers all know Carta's workflows; integrations with the broader startup ecosystem (banks, lawyers, accountants) are best-in-class; the 409A bundled service eliminates a coordination cost (vs hiring separate valuation firms); for established companies past Series B, the depth of features justifies the cost. Where it loses: pricing is genuinely high vs alternatives and feels predatory to some customers (Pulley + AngelList Stack are dramatically cheaper for similar core cap table); Carta had a 2024 scandal where they reportedly approached LPs to facilitate secondary sales without permission, damaging founder trust; the product is increasingly bloated; for early-stage solo founders without raised capital, Carta is overkill. My take: for any startup that has raised a priced round and needs to manage employee equity properly, Carta is the safe-but-expensive default. The 2024 trust issues are worth watching but for most founders the migration cost from Carta isn't worth the savings unless you're explicitly unhappy. For pre-funding startups or post-bootstrap LLCs becoming C-Corps, look at Pulley ($1,200/year base) or AngelList Stack as serious cheaper alternatives. The decision usually becomes obvious based on your investors' preferences — most VCs prefer Carta because they're familiar with the workflows. The annual cost is real ($3K-10K) but it's typically 0.1-0.5% of legal fees for the equity work it handles, so the value justifies the cost for funded startups.