Carta Release Notes - Product Updates

2 years ago12/15/2023

Carta Liquidity: Track Options in Your Portfolio

What’s New?

Option holders can now see the value of their vested, unexercised options using market prices based on our proprietary Reference Price Range. With just a quick look, option holders can also see potential gains from the exercise and sale of options in their portfolio on Carta.

Interested in realizing the gains in exercising and selling your options? Click on the Sell button to start the process of exercising and selling your shares.

What metrics are available and how are they calculated?

Options are displayed alongside any other equity shareholders have in their portfolio for a given company. See our previous release note for the full list of portfolio metrics.

Value of shares: Value of shares at the mark. Calculation: Mark * Shares

Learn more about how options are taxed

How does it work?

You can view and identify to a Carta representative how many shares underlying your options you’d like to sell on Carta:

  1. Log into Carta’s Secondary Marketplace.
  2. View your holdings on the “My holdings” tab.
  3. Click on the “Sell” button to submit your indication of interest to sell your holdings.
  4. Identify the number of options you’d like to exercise and then to sell on the modal.

Who is this available to?

This is only available to Carta Liquidity customers. At this time, only Accredited Investors who qualify as Institutional Accounts can purchase securities and only Accredited Investors can sell securities via Carta Liquidity.

If you’re interested in learning more about Carta Liquidity and get access to the platform, please reach out to investor_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com or your account manager.

Disclaimer: Carta, through its wholly owned broker-dealer subsidiary, Carta Capital Markets, LLC, offers a streamlined experience for executing pre-negotiated stock transfers, tender offers, and other secondary liquidity transactions. Carta Capital Markets, LLC is a member of FINRA/SIPC.

The mark displayed by Carta does not represent an executable price or bid/ask spread and does not reflect any market premium/discounts. The fair market value or executable price, if any, for any security may be higher or lower than the provided price. Many unregistered equity securities are subject to transfer restrictions that may limit transfers at any price.

The mark, Reference Price, and Reference Price Range are not investment advice or a recommendation to transact at any price and should not be your primary basis for determining the value of any security.

Adrian Facini

2 years ago12/11/2023

Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) dashboard

What’s New

Companies that subscribe to the QSBS service will see a new QSBS Tax Break page in their Carta account. The page shows your company's current QSBS status and attestation letter. You can also book time with a Carta QSBS expert on the page directly, and view historical QSBS letters.

What do I need to do?

This page is available to users with Full Access or Company Edit access. Users can navigate to the page for their Company by scrolling to the bottom of the menu and selecting `QSBS Tax Break`.

If you have any questions reach out to your assigned Carta account team or tax@carta.com to learn more!

Jordan Agnew

2 years ago12/1/2023

Flash 409A for early stage companies

What’s new?

Eligible early stage companies will now automatically receive a new draft 409A report the day after their previous one expires.

What’s important about this change?

By automatically sending you a draft of your 409A, we’re removing the need for customers to manually request a new 409A. You will have the opportunity to review and request changes before the new valuation takes effect.

How does it work?

Carta will draft your report using your Carta cap table information and broader market data of similar companies within the same industry, stage, and size. This allows us to provide an accurate and defensible fair market value (FMV) for use when issuing or exercising options.

On the day following expiration and if you have not already submitted a request for an updated valuation, Carta will prepare a valuation and send you a notification once the 409A draft is ready for review. You will also see a new task appear in your company dashboard.

What do I need to do?

All you need to do is review and accept the new FMV. The new FMV will be applied to your account after acceptance.

It is important to note that we assume the following when performing our analysis:

If any of these assumptions are incorrect, or if you have questions about your report, contact the Carta Valuation team at 409a@carta.com before accepting your new 409A so we can make adjustments to your concluded FMV.

Who is it available for?

Corporations that have 409A in their subscription and meet the following requirements:

In addition, our valuation analysts will conduct individual reviews before sending a draft.

How do I learn more or get help?

Contact the Carta Valuation Team at 409a@carta.com, or from the 409A ledger in your Carta account.

Customers can learn more about Flash 409A here.

Stephanie Wittrock

2 years ago12/1/2023

Carta Liquidity: Track Your Portfolio’s Performance

What’s New?

Shareholders can now see the value of their holdings using marks based on our proprietary Reference Price Range. With just a quick look, shareholders can view their unrealized gains, multiple of invested capital, and the rate of return of their portfolio holdings on Carta.

Interested in locking in unrealized gains or closing out a position shown in the red? Click on the Sell button to start the process of selling your shares.

What metrics are available and how are they calculated?

Learn more about the taxes associated with stock sales

Learn more about MOIC

Learn more about IRR

How does it work?

You can view and identify to a Carta representative which holdings you’d like to sell on Carta:

  1. Log into Carta’s Secondary Marketplace.
  2. View your holdings on the “My holdings” tab.
  3. Click on the “Sell” button to submit your indication of interest to sell any of your holdings.

Who is this available to?

Adrian Facini

2 years ago11/20/2023

Carta Liquidity: Track Secondary Marketplace Updates

What’s New?

Carta Liquidity now highlights recently updated key information to help investors stay informed about market changes.

In Carta’s Secondary Marketplace, you can now view and sort by recently updated bids, asks, our proprietary Reference Price Range, and funding rounds.

How does it work?

You can view the latest updates to the marketplace:

  1. Log into Carta’s Secondary Marketplace.
  2. Click the “Browse” tab to browse the latest updates to the marketplace .
  3. Sort by the most recently updated orders or Reference Price Ranges, as well as latest funding rounds using the sort options on the top right of the screen.

Who is this available to?

Ashley Haber

2 years ago11/17/2023

Funding SAFEs via ACH for Investors

What’s new?

This new release gives investors the choice to fund SAFEs online via ACH. By choosing this option investors can quickly fund SAFEs in one-click.

Why is it valuable?

Direct online funding is the preferred choice for most investors due to improved security, reduced manual entry errors, and hassle-free transfers. But prior to this release, the choice of the method of funding was exclusively made by the company.

How does it work?

After signing the SAFE, an investor will be provided with two choices:

  1. They can add their bank account securely via Plaid or manually to Carta. This is a one-time setup.

  2. They can choose to fund via wire, and they will be shown the wire details provided by the company.

  3. Once the funds are received, the SAFE is issued.

  4. If funding is via ACH, Carta automatically issues the SAFE as soon as the funds are received.

  5. If funding is via wire transfer, the company needs to indicate when funds have been received in Carta, and the SAFE will be issued.

Shubhi Nigam

2 years ago11/13/2023

Improved Exercised and Settled Report

What’s new?

Carta has revamped the Exercised and Settled report. The report, used to reconcile exercises, settlements and sales recorded in Carta, now runs from our new reporting engine and comes with improvements and new fields:

Who is this available for, and how do I access it?

This is available for company admins with Full Access, Company Editor and View-Only permissions, and can be accessed by going to your company account, navigating to Cap Table > Run reports, and selecting the Exercised and Settled report.

Will WD

2 years ago11/7/2023

Variable Commitments for Funds

What's new?

GPs can now set a capital commitment range for LPs when closing into their fund.

What’s important about this change?

Providing a commitment range gives LPs the flexibility to adjust their investment amount during the closing process. And it gives you the ability to provide a custom closings experience for each investor, from individual to institutional.

How does it work?

Set a commitment range in Carta Closings, before inviting your LPs to close. You can set one range for all LPs closing into your fund or custom ranges for each individual LP.

LPs will be asked to enter a final commitment amount from the range given before they begin the closings process. This will give your LPs the opportunity to decide how much they want to commit when closing into your fund.

Once the LP enters this amount, you will receive a notification with the final committed capital amount.

How do I learn more?

Reach out to your Account Director to learn more about Carta Closings today.

Jake Hadary

2 years ago11/7/2023

Expenses on Carta - Reimbursements

What's new?

Submit reimbursements directly on Carta. Now, you can skip the back-and-forth over email and upload all the required information to set up a wire in two simple steps.

What’s valuable about this change?

Vendor payments and reimbursements are supported on Carta. From the moment you initiate a reimbursement to when your wire is set up, you can track its progress from anywhere, at any time. Plus, you can maintain your operational cadence and submit invoices to Carta in bulk.

What do I need to do?

  1. Log into your Carta account and click Initiate a payment in your Quick Actions list
  2. Select Reimbursements and Start
  3. Upload the invoice and indicate which bank account to make the payment from
  4. Submit the expense and get an instant progress tracker for your wires

How do I learn more or get help?

Get in touch with your Account Manager or talk to one of our representatives today.

2 years ago11/7/2023

Company dashboard update

What’s new?

Carta has revamped the dashboard page for administrators on their cap table. The dashboard now acts as a central hub that consolidates tasks and recommendations across the cap table to help admins understand what needs their attention at the right times.

Who is this available for?

Company admins with Full Access or Company Editor permissions can see the dashboard page in their company’s cap table view.

How does it work?

Log into your Carta account and navigate to your company. The dashboard is the first page you arrive at and can also be accessed through the left-side navigation panel.

Your Tasks

The ‘Your Tasks’ section outlines all to-do items that you can perform for this company.

Tasks found here may also be found on the main Tasks page, but also include additional action items that must be completed to ensure your company’s cap table is compliant, accurate, and up to date.

For certain tasks, upon click you’ll be navigated to a dashboard sub-page to complete the action. Example below:

If there are no outstanding tasks, we’ll let you know that you’re all caught up. New tasks will appear over time as needed.

Recommendations

Recommendations are helpful cards that appear below ‘Your Tasks’ in the dashboard.

Recommendations highlight information that helps you stay up to date with time-sensitive tax savings, Carta tools that can speed up and simplify cap table management, and insights into employee vesting schedules to help retain talent.

2 years ago11/2/2023

Carta Liquidity: Implied Valuations

What’s New?

Carta Liquidity now displays the implied valuation for all price-per-share values in our Secondary Marketplace.

The most frequently asked question from investors is: "What does that price per share represent in terms of valuation?" Our Secondary Marketplace now provides the implied valuation on live orders, and for our proprietary Reference Price Range. Additionally, users can see a live calculation of the implied valuation when entering an indication of interest.

How does it work?

You can view implied valuations for price-per-share values on Carta:

  1. Log into Carta’s Secondary Marketplace.
  2. Click the “Browse” tab to view the valuation information associated with the best priced orders on Carta and our proprietary Reference Price Range.
  3. Click the “View company details” on a company to view the valuation information associated with all other orders for that company on Carta.

You can submit indications to buy or sell shares on Carta:

  1. Log into Carta’s Secondary Marketplace.
  2. Click on the “Sell” button on the Sell tab to submit your indication of interest to sell any of your holdings.
  3. Alternatively, click on the “Buy” button on the Buy tab to submit your indication of interest to buy shares of a company.
  4. In either case, when entering the “Target price per share” to sell or buy at, an implied valuation of your target price will calculate live.
  5. If you don’t see supply in a company you’re interested in, submit an indication of interest to buy on the "Browse" tab

Who is this available to?

Ashley Haber

2 years ago11/1/2023

U.S. national average geo-adjustments

What’s new?

You can now use benchmarks that are adjusted to reflect US national average pay levels. This new feature allows you to use an accurate, standard, and uniform approach when setting a compensation framework for your company. You can view and use the US national average by:

  1. Viewing Benchmarks at the US national average pay level
  2. Setting your Compensation Plan at the US national average pay level

How can I review US national average geo-adjustments?

US national average benchmarks are available to review on the Benchmarks page by following these steps:

1. Navigate to the “Benchmarks” page

2. In the Location selection drop-down, users can select “All US locations (national average)”

How can I use the US national average in my compensation plan?

If your location-based compensation strategy targets compensation for all employees at the US national average, you can follow these steps to build that into your Compensation Plan

  1. Navigate to “Compensation plan” on the top nav.
  2. Navigate to “Location-based pay”
  3. Under “USA Adjustments” select “Pay everyone the same regardless of location”
  4. Check the box labeled “Use national average”

Questions?

If you have any questions about US national average geo-adjustments, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

2 years ago10/31/2023

New compensation benchmarks for HR, Marketing, and Manufacturing roles

What’s new?

Our benchmarks now support one new job area and two new specializations:

Note: The sample size for new benchmarks are generally smaller than existing benchmarks, which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size.

How do I see benchmarks for the new roles?

You can view benchmarks for the new roles by:

Visiting the Benchmarks page and selecting “Manufacturing, “Human Resources, or “Marketing” under Area. Within “Human Resources” and “Marketing”, you can select any of the new specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

This will allow you to view compensation benchmarks for levels 1 - 8 for these new roles

The above process can be followed for each of the new benchmarks.

How do benchmarks for the additional benchmarks affect the Employee Scorecard?

The compa-ratio is a quick way to compare an employee's compensation to your plan's target rate for a given job area, level, and location. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the new benchmarks will now be calculated using the target compensation for the new benchmarks.

How do I update my benchmark version to use new data?

You can preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here you will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your Scorecard before accepting the new plan.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the new data, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

2 years ago10/31/2023

Submit reimbursements with a snap of a picture

What's new?

Fund managers can now submit reimbursements on Carta Carry.

What’s important about this change?

Gone are the days of holding on to crumpled receipts or combing through credit card statements at quarter’s end to submit for reimbursement.

Now, we’ve streamlined expense management right from your phone. Easily submit a reimbursement in real-time by snapping a picture of the receipt and uploading it in one place.

How does it work?

Tap Submit Reimbursement, then select Add Receipt. You can select to take a picture, choose a photo from your photo library, or upload a file.

Then select the paying entity and where the reimbursement should go. Add any additional information your fund administrator should know when processing this expense, then tap Submit Request.

Reimbursements on Carta Carry

Don’t have Carta Carry?

Download it on iOS or Android today.

Eric Morelli

2 years ago10/30/2023

Introducing support for expensing profits interests with non-market performance conditions and a new report ledger

What's new?

ASC 718 Financial Reporting now supports expensing profits interest units with vesting schedules that have non-market performance conditions. Additionally, all historically generated reports are now saved in a report ledger.

What's important or valuable about this change?

What do I need to do?

See this release note for more information on how to pull ASC 718 expense and disclosure reports from Carta.

  1. When pulling an expense and disclosure report for profits interests with non-market performance conditions, you will be prompted to edit the estimated recognition date, estimated payout percentage, and recognition confidence for each condition.

  2. See and download every draft and finalized expense and disclosure report from the report ledger.

How do I learn more or get help?

If you need help with your Carta-generated financial reports,  contact our dedicated ASC 718 support team.

If you’re interested in automating ASC 718 financial reporting with Carta, please reach out to your CSM or request a demo from the Financial reporting tab inside Carta. ASC 718 financial reporting is available as an add-on to your current Carta subscription.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago10/30/2023

Introducing Single Sign-On for Carta LLC

What's new?

Access to your Carta account can now be managed via SSO.

What's important or valuable about this change?

You can now link your identity management provider to Carta to ensure access to Carta meets your company’s authentication security standards. Add, remove, and audit access to Carta in your identity management platform.

What do I need to do?

Talk to your CSM to add and enable Single Sign-On on your Carta account. Once you’ve added Carta to your identity management provider, you’ll be able to see who has access to Carta from the Team and security page and will need to use your identity management provider to add or remove users.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on Single Sign-On, please visit our support site.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago10/30/2023

Gain more insights in cap table reports

What's new?

You can now see additional data in cap table reports, including the interest issue date and the documents that were shared with the interest holder.

What's important or valuable about this change?

When reporting on interests issued to holders, you can gain more insights with key information including the issue dates in cap table views and document names in the interest export, allowing you to increase auditability and ensure the correct documents have been shared with holders.

What do I need to do?

  1. Using the configuration menu in cap table views, select the issue date field. This will add an issue date column to the cap table view and you’ll be able to export this data.

  2. View and audit documents that were shared with holders in the interest ledger export

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on cap table reports, please visit our support site.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago10/30/2023

Compensation data in Cap Table Stakeholders modal

What’s new?

Carta Total Compensation customers will have access to a complete view of employee details with their salary information, equity information, and market targets now also visible in the Cap Table Stakeholder modal.

How do I access it?

1. Users can navigate to ‘Manage Stakeholders’ under Essentials on the left-hand navigation menu.

2. Stakeholders who are employees will have a new menu item “View employee Compensation” under the three-dot menu

3. This will open the “Compensation” tab for the employee, which will display:

a. A summary of salary and equity compensation

b. Market targets for the individual as set by the Compensation Plan in Carta Total Compensation

Questions?

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

2 years ago10/19/2023

Fundraise insights for SAFEs

What’s new?

Introducing a SAFE Insights tool that provides fundraise benchmarks customizable by industry, stage, and location.

Why is it valuable?

One of the first steps of any fundraise is understanding what terms to raise on. This tool helps early-stage companies contextualize the terms they are considering against other comparable companies. The tool leverages a dataset of 38,000 startups and 2 million security holders managing $2.7 trillion in equity to enable founders to negotiate and get funding based on reliable and current data benchmarks.

How does it work?

Companies indicate the terms of their SAFE round including stage, industry, and financing amount raised. Based on their input, the tool  will show  how their specific SAFE terms compare against the latest benchmarks on:

Getting started:

  1. Navigate to the SAFE Financings page under the Fundraising tab

  2. Click on “Go to SAFE terms calculator”

  3. Choose your terms. You do not need to provide all the terms.

  4. Click on calculate, you can now see insights specific to your SAFE round

Shubhi Nigam

2 years ago10/12/2023

Variable Commitments for SPVs

What's new?

GPs can now set a capital commitment range for their LPs.

What’s important about this change?

Providing a commitment range gives LPs the flexibility to adjust their investment amount during the closing process.

How does it work?

Set a commitment range during your SPV setup process, before inviting your LPs to close. This will give your LPs the opportunity to decide how much they want to commit when closing into your SPV.

Once the LP closes, you will receive a notification with the final committed capital amount.

2 years ago10/11/2023

LP Primary Contact Update

What's new?

GPs can now update the primary contact information for an LP.

What’s important about this change?

Previously, if you wanted to update an LPs primary contact, you would have to work with Carta to make this change.

Now, you can update primary contacts, whenever you need to. Plus, you can keep track of all changes made in your LP contact audit log.

How does it work?

Select the entity, then navigate to the Partners tab. Find the primary contact you would like to update, then click on the pencil symbol.

First, select whether the current primary contact should be deleted or downgraded to a secondary contact.

You can either upgrade an existing secondary contact or add a new contact. If you do not have an existing secondary contact for this LP, you will only see the option to add a new primary contact.

Note: If you only have to update your primary contact’s email address, you will still need to first delete them as primary contact, then re-add them with their new email address.

If this contact is associated with multiple investments, you can apply this contact change across all of their commitments.

Click Confirm change. Your new primary contact will now receive an email inviting them to Carta.

To view an audit of all changes made to your primary contact’s information, find the contact you would like to audit, then click on the last updated date.

Soon your LPs will have visibility into who the primary contact is for their commitments and be able to update this information, whenever they need to.

How do I learn more or get help?

To learn more about primary contacts and how to update your primary contact information, check out this support article or reach out to your Account Director for a demo.

Spencer Holton

2 years ago10/10/2023

Introducing the New Hire Equity Forecasting calculator to help you proactively allocate equity

What’s new?

Carta Total Compensation users can now use the New Hire Equity Forecast calculator to proactively allocate equity for anticipated headcount in the upcoming months.

How do I access it?

You can access the New Hire Equity Forecast calculator, along with any other Carta Total Comp report, from either:

See a quick video on accessing compensation reports here.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the new report, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

2 years ago10/10/2023

Approve management fees—no matter where you are

What's new?

Fund managers can now review and approve management fees on Carta Carry.

What’s important about this change?

Now, whether you're at your desk or on the go, you can conveniently and proactively approve your management fees directly on Carta.

How does it work?

You’ll receive a push notification when your management fees are ready for review. Tap into the task to review the management fee calculations.

If you want to make changes to your management fees, tap Request changes, enter the request, and our fund admin team will make the update.

To approve, click Approve fees. You can then select to transfer the entirety of the management fee, a specific amount, or schedule the management fee to transfer at a later date.

Don't have the app?

Eric Morelli

2 years ago10/4/2023

Automatic Stakeholder Updates

What’s new?

Customers with an HR Integration can automatically keep stakeholder information up to date! With automatic stakeholder updates, HRIS data for employee addresses, tax IDs, job titles and cost centers can automatically apply in Carta! The Manage Stakeholders page now includes the status and the ability to toggle the feature on and off from a setting modal. Additionally, admins can review these automatic updates via a report.

How does it work?

When setting up a new integration, Carta will automatically enable this functionality to ensure your cap table information is up to date and accurate. For customers with an existing integration, there is no change to the existing experience, but they can opt in from the Manage Stakeholders page.

What do I need to do?

This feature requires an HRIS integration, which can be configured under Company Settings. For more details on available integration partners, see our HRIS Integrations: Overview.

How do I learn more or get help?

Customers can learn more about automatic updates here.

2 years ago10/3/2023

New release in Beta: Add Carta Tax Advisory to your company's Slack

What’s New

Companies can now add Carta Tax Advisory to their Slack. The new Slack app, allows employees to book 1-1 sessions, visit our video education center, and see their post-session recap from their personal Carta Equity Tax Advisory.

Employees also can view upcoming sessions, join their 1-1 directly, and receive reminders for upcoming sessions.

What do I need to do?

Company admins can log in to their Carta account and view the installation link on the Equity Tax Advisory page.

After navigating to the Equity Tax Advisory dashboard, select the "Install" button on the task list:

From there you will be directed to the Slack installation page, make sure you select the proper Slack network.

If you have any questions reach out to your assigned Carta account team or tax@carta.com to learn more!

Jordan Agnew

2 years ago9/15/2023

Financial Reporting Progress Tracker

What's new?

GPs on Carta now have full visibility into the progress of their quarterly financial reports – 15 days before quarter-end.

What’s valuable about this change?

Previously, the process to complete your financials was opaque. A series of emails and phone calls were required to project manage your reporting. Now, conveniently located in your Activity tab, you can see a complete checklist of the tasks required to prepare your financial statements.

Starting today, you can take action and share information with us directly in Carta. We’ll mark those tasks as complete in real-time. Plus you get a look into everything the fund admin team is working on.

What’s next?

On October 2, you'll receive an email with your draft Q3 financial report(s). If your open tasks are resolved between now and then, your financials will be ready to review, approve, and send to your LPs just one business day after the quarter ends.

What do I need to do?

  1. Check your inbox for a “Get started on Q3 2023 financials” email from Carta
  2. Log into your account to view your Financial Reporting Progress experience
  3. Toggle between your entities using the dropdown on the top right

Didn’t receive an email or are some of your entities missing from the Financial Report Progress Tracker? Learn more about why.

How do I learn more or get help?

Get in touch with your Account Director or talk to one of our representatives today.

Melissa VanDerHeyden

2 years ago9/14/2023

Quarterly benchmark refresh and new Life Sciences industry benchmarks

What’s new?

We have three new updates included as a part of this benchmark version:

Quarterly benchmark refresh

We have updated salary, total cash compensation, and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations.

Market Trends

Salary and total cash compensation benchmarks are generally flat since our last update. These trends are fairly consistent across company valuation and level. As in previous updates, specialization level data continues to be more volatile than the broader sample, as sample sizes for these roles are smaller than job area-level data.

Equity benchmarks have decreased approximately 1%, less than last quarter’s 9%. Equity benchmarks have been decreasing steadily since the beginning of the year, and it’s possible that the market is starting to stabilize close to a “new normal”. We did observe larger decreases, however, among later stage companies indicating that these companies (similar to public companies earlier in 2023) are focused on managing dilution in the face of falling valuations

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

Salary - Project Management roles saw the largest increase this quarter (+5%), balancing out the larger decrease that this job area saw last quarter. Notably our AI/ML engineering benchmarks increased by approximately 3%. IT and Legal salary benchmarks decreased by 3% versus last quarter. All other job areas saw salary changes that were within 2% of last quarter’s benchmarks.

Equity - Human Resources and Finance roles saw the largest decreases. Some job areas and specializations did see overall increases to equity benchmarks this quarter, such as Sales Development, Sales/Solutions Engineering, and Art and Graphic Design. Most other job areas changed by 3% or less versus last quarter though there can be variance by level and valuation peer group.

Life Sciences industry benchmarks

We have released initial benchmarks for three new specializations specific to the Life Sciences industry:

Benchmarks for these roles were developed based on employee data taken exclusively from the Life Sciences companies in our database, making these benchmarks our first industry specific benchmarks. These benchmarks are reflective of the geographic distribution of Life Sciences talent, with markets like Boston, San Diego, Seattle, and Los Angeles joining San Francisco and New York as the top labor markets for these roles.

Peer group updates

Finally, in an effort to increase the overall quality of our benchmarks, we will no longer provide data for the Below $1M valuation peer group. Variability of pay within that group tended to be high, and many of our benchmarks were less relevant for companies at such an early stage. Any customers with Plans set to use the Below $1M will automatically default to the $1M - $10M peer group after updating to the latest benchmark version.

How do I update my benchmark version?

You can also preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

How do I see benchmarks for the new Life Sciences industry specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the new specializations by:

1. Visiting the Benchmarks page and selecting “Research” under Area. Once the job area is selected, you can select “Life Sciences” from the Industry dropdown and any of the new specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

2. This will allow you to view salary/equity benchmarks for levels 1-3 for Research Associate, levels 4-6 for Scientist, and levels 1-5 for Lab Operations

Questions?

If you have any questions about these new benchmarks or if you have suggestions for additional Life Sciences specific data, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

2 years ago9/11/2023

Equity reporting suite: OCX

What's new?

Carta now has an exportable Open Cap Table report.

OCX, also known as the Open Cap Table Excel Standard, is an initiative led by the Open Cap Table Coalition to establish standardized practices for equity data.

OCX serves as a cap table report, similar to Carta's existing cap table feature. However, it represents our commitment to a more standardized approach to equity practices.

To access OCX, navigate to Cap Table > Run reports. You will find the OCX report in the equity report list as well as under the Capitalization folder.

Why is this important?

OCX aims to standardize an ecosystem where various stakeholders operate differently in terms of their practices and data presentation. By adopting a more uniform approach, it enables seamless interaction with equity data and smoother movement across different processes and platforms.

Where can I learn more?

Soon, we will have a dedicated support article for the OCX report, and you can read about our existing reports on our support site. You can also find additional information about OCX in Announcing the Open Cap Table Excel Standard (OCX).

Will WD

2 years ago9/5/2023

Upload and issue custom SAFE documents and templates

What’s new?

Carta is adding support for custom SAFEs and side letters. Companies now have the flexibility to use customized SAFEs and side letters for their financing round. This release expands the types of documents that can be used to issue, transact and manage through Carta.

Why is it valuable?

Companies and investors may agree on a different set of terms that are not supported by a YC or SAFE template, and require a SAFE and side letter that reflects these terms. With this feature, customers can have their custom SAFE agreements signed and funded on Carta, benefiting from Carta’s streamlined investor and stakeholder signing, status tracking, faster funding, and automatic cap table updates.

How does it work?

Users can upload a custom, pre-filled SAFE document and side letter to be signed and funded through Cata.

For acceptance, custom SAFE templates require all of the following:

Getting started:

  1. Navigate to the SAFE Financings page under the Fundraising tab

  2. Create a new SAFE and select Custom SAFE Template

  3. Upload your complete, pre-filled SAFE document.

Note: Ensure there are no signature pages.

  1. Make sure the information you entered directly on Carta matches the terms on your uploaded document.
  2. Attach any custom pre-filled side letters, if available.
  3. Close and send the SAFE for signing.

How do I learn more or get help?

To learn more about SAFE Financings, check out this support article or reach out to your Account Manager for a demo. You can also learn how you can securely, quickly, and conveniently transfer fund s directly within Carta.

Shubhi Nigam

2 years ago9/1/2023

See how upcoming refresh / tenure, promotion, and true-up grants will affect your option pool

What’s new?

You can now use the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator to automatically calculate the impact on your option pool from three different types of equity grants:

With these grants incorporated into your calculations, you can more accurately model your equity pool’s burn over the coming year to make informed decisions around strategies for your compensation program.

How do I access the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator?

You can access the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator, along with any other Carta Total Comp reports, from either:

If you want to have access or want to schedule a demo to understand what you can unlock with the calculator and Carta Total Comp, reach out to your CSM.

What’s next?

We are planning a few additional enhancements to improve ease of use of the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator:

This calculator is also a living and growing tool – and so any feedback you have will be appreciated. You can either provide it via reports-feedback@carta.com, through your CSM, or directly within Carta Total Compensation after downloading the calculator. Your feedback will help us improve this and other reports to fit your needs.

Will WD

2 years ago8/30/2023

Centralized communications with investors, with the power of Carta

What’s new?

Today, we’re releasing the Communication Center to all Carta customers, which gives you the ability to easily provide updates to your stakeholders from a central location using advanced messaging functionality.

How does it work?

You can now use the Communication Center to:

How do I access the Communication Center?

Ready to send a company update? Log-in to your Carta account and head to the Communications tab on the left-hand navigation. See how it works.

2 years ago8/30/2023

Automate your Rule 701 Compliance on Carta

Sending 701 Disclosures is now seamlessly integrated into the issuance process on Carta. After drafting shares, a company can quickly run a report to check whether a 701 disclosure is required. If they are, they can upload and securely send to both new and existing stakeholders without leaving the app.

What is a 701 Disclosure? Am I required to send them?

A 701 Disclosure is a notice you may need to send to employees and investors if your company wants to sell or issue more than $10 million in securities within a 12-month period. This includes employees and other service providers who will be receiving equity in your company. They must be given the chance to review the disclosures before the purchase decision (or acceptance of an equity award) is made. You can read more about Rule 701 and how it applies to your company here.

Companies can use Carta’s compliance features to check if they are required to send 701 Disclosures before issuing securities. Go to Essentials > Run reports to find the 701 report to check whether you meet this requirement.

Who is this available for?

Companies in Scale. If you would like to upgrade your subscription to include Rule 701 Compliance, talk to your Account Manager or schedule a demo.

How does it work?

  1. After drafting RSUs, click Add RSUs to the ledger.

  2. Next, you will be prompted to either run a 701 report or begin preparing the 701 Disclosure without running a report. Running a 701 report will let you know if you are required to send 701 disclosures before issuing these RSUs.

  3. NOTE: Clicking Prepare 701 disclosure does not trigger an email to your recipients or company signatories.

  4. After clicking Prepare 701 disclosure, you will be taken to the Communication Center,  where you can prepare a message and attach a disclosure PDF. Click Next: Choose recipients or Click Save Draft to save this draft for another time.

  5. If you save your draft, Carta will add a reminder to the top RSU ledger. Click Draft Rule 701 disclosure on your RSU ledger to continue working on this disclosure.

  6. Carta automatically includes all  RSU recipients of your drafted RSUs. Additional recipients can be selected from the table on the left, if applicable. To proceed, click Next.

  7. Review the message and recipient list. If everything looks good, click Send communication.

  8. Recipients will be able to access the disclosure from their Carta inbox as well as via email.

  9. Once all recipients have received this disclosure, Carta automatically sends RSUs to your company signatories.

  10. As soon as signatories sign the RSUs, holders will receive them.

What will recipients see?

Once a 701 Disclosure has been sent, recipients will receive the following email. This communication will be sent to the stakeholder’s Contact Email on file.

How can I trust that these disclosures are sent securely?

All disclosures will be watermarked individually. These documents will be shared with recipients directly in Carta, not over email. Your recipients will be blocked from downloading the document, and any admins on your account will see who opened the disclosure and when. Admins will also have access to analytics to see which pages of the disclosure each recipient spent the most time on.

Can I resend a 701 Disclosure to a recipient?

You cannot resend a 701 Disclosure in the app. If you need to resend a 701 Disclosure for any reason, contact Carta’s support team for assistance.

Alana Lindall

2 years ago8/23/2023

Expected completion dates

What's new?

Fund managers can now see an expected completion date for all tasks in their Activity tab.

What’s important about this change?

You can now see when your fund admin team is expected to complete a task, bringing greater transparency to your back office.

Plus, you’ll see when you need to complete your portion of the task to meet the expected completion date.

How does it work?

On your Activity tab, click into any task to view the expected by date.

View the Action Needed By date to see when you need to complete your portion of the task to meet the expected by date.

How do I learn more?

To learn more about expected completion dates, reach out to your Relationship Manager today.

Melissa VanDerHeyden

2 years ago8/22/2023

Build and run any waterfall model with a new bespoke modeling engine

What's new?

We’ve released a new bespoke waterfall modeling engine that is encoded with your distribution rules and connected to your most up-to-date cap table in Carta.

What's important or valuable about this change?

The new waterfall modeling engine allows you to build and run any waterfall model in minutes.

What do I need to do?

Waterfall modeling is available as an add-on to your current Carta subscription. Please reach out to your CSM to learn more and request a demo.

This solution requires a custom implementation to encode the distribution rules from your operating agreement into Carta’s modeling engine. Your CSM will walk you through what is needed from you to get started.

If you currently have the new waterfall modeling solution enabled and implemented on your Carta account:

  1. Navigate to the Valuations tab and click on Waterfall modeling.

  2. On the Waterfall modeling page, input the valuation date, the total equity value, and choose your vesting treatment to run the waterfall.

  3. You can view your distribution rules by clicking on the Distribution rules button in the top right.

  4. Once you run the waterfall, you can view a complete breakdown of proceeds based on your inputs and distribution rules. You can run as many waterfall models as you want by customizing the valuation date, total equity value, and vesting treatment. For each waterfall analysis, you can:

  5. View proceeds by Interest Holder or Interest Type

  6. View overall proceeds or filter by proceeds type(s)

  7. Filter by interest holder(s)

  8. Access interest details and documents

  9. View the breakpoint summary

  10. Export the analysis to Excel

How do I learn more or get help?

If you’re interested in Waterfall modeling, please reach out to your CSM to get started. For support with waterfall modeling, visit our support site.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago8/22/2023

Interest holders can choose a portfolio for their interests

What's new?

Interest holders with multiple Carta portfolios can now choose the portfolio they want to accept their interests into.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Interest holders with more than one Carta portfolio, such as a family trust or a portfolio they share with their spouse, have the flexibility to accept their interests into the portfolio of their choice.

What do I need to do?

As an interest holder, when you’ve received a new interest, you can either choose an existing Carta portfolio you want to accept your interest into or create a new one.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, please visit our support site.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago8/22/2023

Easily update data rooms and document templates

What's new?

We’ve released some usability improvements to Documents that provide Admins more flexibility to make updates to Data Rooms and Templates.

What's important or valuable about this change?

When managing documents, Admins now have the flexibility to:

What do I need to do?

  1. On the Data Rooms page, navigate to the menu on the right side of the data room, folder, or document to rename or delete it.

  2. On the Templates page, navigate to the menu on the right side of the interest agreement template to rename or delete it.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, please visit our support site.

Zeba Naqvi

2 years ago8/16/2023

Carta Liquidity: Reference Price Range

What’s New?

Carta Liquidity is now providing our proprietary Reference Price Range for companies in our Secondary Marketplace.

The Reference Price Range is based on information derived from available aggregated, composite, and/or historical transaction pricing information and updated on a weekly basis as necessary. The Reference Price Range may also incorporate recent bids and offers in a specified security from various market sources.

How does it work?

Log into your Carta account, enter the Liquidity platform, and navigate to the “ Marketplace” tab.  From there, investors can browse opportunities to buy and sell with Reference Price Ranges.

You can see the Reference Price Range for a company:

  1. On the "Sell" tab, alongside your holdings
  2. On the "Buy" tab, when viewing the details of our confirmed supply
  3. On the "Browse" tab, directly on the company card, along with the best available order to buy and sell on Carta

Who is this available to?

This is only available to Carta Liquidity customers. If you’re interested in learning more about Carta Liquidity and get access to the platform, please reach out to investor_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com or your account manager.

The Reference Price Range does not represent an executable price or bid/ask spread and does not reflect any market premium/discounts. The fair market value or executable price, if any, for any security may be higher or lower than the provided range. Many unregistered equity securities are subject to transfer restrictions that may limit transfers at any price.

The Reference Price Range is not investment advice or a recommendation to transact at any price and should not be your primary basis for determining the value of any security.

Ashley Haber

2 years ago8/14/2023

LP Contact Audit Log

What's new?

Fund managers can now view an audit of all changes made to LP contacts.

What’s important about this change?

You now have full visibility into any changes made to your LPs contact information, including:

Plus, you can now easily see if a contact is associated with additional LPs in your firm or switch between fund commitments to view a contact audit across investments.

How does it work?

Select the entity, navigate to the Partners tab, then select Contacts. Find the contact you would like to audit, then click on the last updated date.

You can now view who added the contact, when they were added, and more. Click the carrot drop down to view contact permissions.

Click the carrot drow down next to Show contact audit in fund commitment to view a contact audit across investments.

To view recent changes made to contacts, sort your contact list by clicking the Last updated column header.

How do I learn more or get help?

To learn more about LP Contact Audits, check out this support article or reach out to your Relationship Manager for a demo.

Spencer Holton

2 years ago8/11/2023

Expenses on Carta

What's new?

Submit invoices directly on Carta. Now, you can skip the back-and-forth over email and upload all the required information to set up a wire in two simple steps.

What’s valuable about this change?

From the moment you initiate a vendor payment to when your wire is set up, you can track its progress from anywhere, at any time. Plus, you can maintain your operational cadence and submit invoices to Carta in bulk.

What do I need to do?

  1. Log into your Carta account and click Initiate a vendor payment in your Quick Actions list
  2. Upload the invoice and indicate which bank account to make the payment from
  3. Submit the expense and get an instant progress tracker for your wires

How do I learn more or get help?

Get in touch with your Relationship Manager or talk to one of our representatives today.

Kathleen Meil

2 years ago8/9/2023

Automatically Expense Awards with Event-Based Performance Conditions

What’s new?

Starting August 10, 2023, companies that issue NSOs and RSUs with event-based performance conditions attached to their vesting schedules will now be able to automatically calculate and expense these awards in their SBC Expense, Disclosure, and Dilution reports. Previously, companies that gave out awards with event-based performance conditions calculated their SBC Expense, Disclosure, and Dilution values manually outside of Carta.

Who is this available for?

All Carta Cap Table users with Financial Reporting in their subscription. If you do not yet have Financial Reporting in your subscription, please talk to your Account Manager or email 718@carta.com.

How does it work?

What’s an event-based performance condition?

If an award has a performance condition, it means that the award has a vesting condition that is subject to performance-based criteria. An event-based performance condition is one in which vesting is contingent on a liquidity event such as an IPO.  Carta’s cap table includes support for NSO and RSU awards with event-based performance conditions. Now, companies that issue NSOs or RSUs with event-based performance conditions can automatically expense these options in their financial reports.

How does Carta calculate the fair value assumptions?

Companies can choose to use either Carta’s default fair value assumption or to create a customized one. Carta’s default fair values assumption is calculated with the Black Scholes pricing model, using your company’s Fair Reporting Value at an award’s grant date.

Can I create reports using both US GAAP and IFRS scenarios?

Not at this time. Companies can only expense awards with event-based performance conditions in US GAAP.

Can I attach event-based performance conditions to a specific vest date?

Yes. As of September 14, 2023, companies that issue NSOs and RSUs with event-based performance conditions attached to a specific vesting date can be expensed using our Financial Reporting tool.

Where do I go if I have more questions about financial reporting?

If you have more questions about our Financial Reporting product, please contact 718@carta.com.

Alana Lindall