How Emergent Ventures stays tax-ready all year with Carta

Emergent Ventures, a venture capital firm based in San Mateo, California, counts on Carta for end-to-end fund management, connecting tax readiness with fund administration in one place. The firm started in 2016 and focuses on seed funding for startups building enterprise-level artificial intelligence.

Managing partner Ankur Jain values Carta for its direct access to real-time information. The platform makes it easy for him, his team and Emergent’s limited partners (LPs) to understand tax scenarios and remain compliant all year round. Jain also relies on Carta’s team of fund tax experts to help with advanced tax strategies and investor relations.

Carta offers more control than traditional fund admins

Before Carta, Emergent used a large, more traditional partner to administer funds. Services were costly and required Jain to handle a lot of documentation. He came to Carta because he needed more agility and control.

“Many of our portfolio companies use Carta, so when Carta rolled out fund administration, I was interested in exploring,” says Jain. “The people at Carta were eager to work with funds of our size and focused on how emerging managers like us could grow. It was a better fit for our financial position.”

Carta’s centralized fund management solution provides Emergent with key information so Jain can get more done without waiting on anyone. The platform integrates transaction and distribution management, compliance services, tax management, and audit support.

“Carta is more technology-oriented than other fund administrators we’ve used, which aligns well with Emergent as venture capitalists in the tech space. It’s a good value versus traditional firms,” says Jain.

Tax readiness provides financial clarity

By connecting taxes with other fund activities, Emergent gains year-round financial clarity. Carta provides preparation, distribution, and filing of federal and state taxes, while allowing Emergent’s team and LPs to track information in real time.

“Being tax-ready is important for us, because we have to plan our tax distributions. Carta gives us visibility into what the year ahead looks like—and what it could look like—so we can pay estimated taxes and satisfy other rules.”
Ankur Jain
Managing partner, Emergent Ventures

Jain also appreciates Carta’s fund tax dashboard, a single pane that shows Emergent’s opportunities and obligations at a glance. From the dashboard, his team can connect with Carta tax professionals when they have questions.

“The dashboard is useful because it lets me and my team know what information I have and what information I need,” says Jain. “We can make decisions, resolve blockers, and download tax documentation in a convenient way.”

A connected system ensures accuracy and efficiency

“At Emergent, we like to send out Schedule K-1s to our LPs by the end of March each year. When we used a separate tax firm from our fund administrator, there was always push and pull on timelines. Now, Carta owns this for us, and we can balance internal and compliance deadlines all year because information is always flowing. I don’t have to do anything: Carta has our master data and automatically syncs it between administration and taxes.”

This connectivity helps Emergent maintain accuracy. In the past, if information was outdated, Jain wouldn’t necessarily know until it was already an issue.

“On Carta, data stays current. If something is missing, like an address or an inconsistent name spelling, the system flags it,” says Jain, “Carta reaches out to the LP for us to correct and synchronize the information. That’s been very helpful.”

Emergent trusts Carta tax experts

Carta acts as an extension of Emergent’s team on matters of tax guidance and strategy, too.

“We appreciate that Carta’s tax team is knowledgeable,” says Jain. “When we have questions, we want to feel certain that we can trust external guidance and opinions. Working with experienced tax professionals means we don’t cycle through multiple verifications. If someone at Carta tells us something, we trust it and move on.”

For example, during a recent sale of shares, Jain had questions about eligibility for qualified small business stock (QSBS) exclusions, which can help investors limit capital gains tax obligations under specific conditions. The Carta team has also contributed to recent legislation that expands the QSBS benefit for eligible investors.

“We asked Carta to assess the situation for us and they came back with answers that showed their knowledge of the tax benefit,” says Jain. “That gave us comfort to move forward with claiming the QSBS exclusion.”

Carta gives Emergent peace of mind

With Carta, Jain can spend his time leading Emergent Ventures, supporting general partners (GPs) on investments, and providing a high-quality service to LPs. Self-serve technology backed by fund tax experts gives him peace of mind to allocate his time appropriately.

“I’m comfortable handing over multiple tasks to Carta and including the Carta team in important discussions because of our strong relationship. Matters are resolved well and in a reasonable time. I’ve been impressed by how the team can always help within just a couple of steps.”