Carta Release Notes - Product Updates

3 years ago3/23/2023

New specializations for Design and Operations

What’s new?

We’re excited to announce the release of two new specializations:

Note: Our sample size for new specializations can be smaller than job area benchmarks, which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size.

No other benchmarks have changed in this update.

How do I see benchmarks for the additional specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the new specializations by:

  1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Design” or “Operations” under Area. Once the job area is selected, you can select either the UX Design or the Logistics and Supply Chain specialization by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

  1. This will allow you to view salary/equity bands for levels 1 - 8 for either specialization.

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

How do benchmarks for the additional specializations 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 UX Design and Logistics and Supply Chain specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specialization, not the job area.

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

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

  1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

  2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.

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.

3 years ago3/16/2023

New Vesting Strategy Option for Stock Splits

What's new?

Companies now can decide how they want their shares to be reallocated within the vesting schedules when stock splits are performed. Two vesting strategies can be selected now:

Option 1: Reapply templates

When companies choose the reapply templates option, Carta will automatically reapply the template for all securities with template vesting schedules upon performing the split. This means that Carta will re-calculate the vesting schedules attached to securities, considering the new total quantity. This can change how the vesting is distributed among the tranches since it will be an entirely new vesting schedule.

For example, a 10 shares grant that time vests with tranches of 2 and 3 shares will, after a 1:10 split, have tranches of 25 shares each if the company chooses this option.

Option 2: Apply stock split ratio to all tranches

When companies choose to apply the stock split ratio to all tranches, Carta will multiply the stock split ratio by each tranche. In case the shares remaining in a tranche are fractional, the platform will then round down to the nearest integer. This results in fewer differences in the schedule from the pre-split to the post-split security. If a security is tied to a template vesting schedule, Carta will need to update it to a custom schedule to make this change. Custom vesting schedules cannot be reapplied later, as they are not part of any templates.

If companies choose this option, a 10 shares grant that time vests with tranches of 2 and 3 shares, after a 1:10 split, will have tranches of 20 and 30 shares each if this option is chosen.

Why is this important?

Different companies need their post-split vesting schedules to be represented differently. With this change, Carta becomes more flexible to adjust to different vesting scenarios. Having more vesting accommodation strategies also means less time dedicated to manual adjustments after a stock split is performed.

How can I learn more about this?

You can find a detailed explanation of the new vesting strategies with vesting schedule examples in this support article.

Eduardo Bacil Monteiro Dias

3 years ago3/14/2023

Private Dilution Report in Financial Reporting

What’s new?

Private companies on Carta can now run Dilution reports. The Dilution report will include:

All 3 of these values will help customers calculate Diluted Earnings Per Share for their income statement.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Private company Financial Reporting administrators will be able to run a Dilution Report that will provide them with major inputs into the Diluted Earnings Per Share formula.

In this release, the following will be available:

What do I need to do?

Log in to Carta and go to Compliance > Financial Reporting. Run a new report (must be 1 year or less reporting period). In the drop down menu to download other reports, such as SBC Expense and Min Disclosure, there will be an option for Dilution.

Have questions? Contact 718@carta.com

Samantha Widman

3 years ago3/8/2023

Suite of New Equity Reports

What’s new?

Soon, you will be able to access 8 new reporting templates under Capitalization > Reporting, which provide you with access to critical data points about your equity pool, company, securities, and stakeholders. You will be able to see exactly how your key option pool values are derived, view equity awards joined with Grant Reason and Employee ID, and even export a detailed list of stakeholders and their properties.

Why is this important?

We’ve been listening to every piece of feedback from you, and have heard the challenges that you face. The new reports address these challenges, providing visibility into how key pool values are derived, and giving you reporting access to over 60 key fields that were spread across multiple places, and in some cases, previously un-reportable.

Those 8 template reports are:

What do I need to do?

You should be on the lookout for an email from your CSM letting you know that these reports are now available for you. Once you get that email, you can go to Capitalization > Reporting, and you will see the following view, where the newly added reports will have a ‘New’ bubble next to them:

From there, you just need to export the report as usual!

Where can I learn more?

For more information on exporting reports, visit our support site. We will be adding additional information to the support site as reports are updated and improved.

Will WD

3 years ago3/7/2023

Capital Activity Quick Search

What's new?

GPs can now click on a specific investor's name within their Capital Activity Notice PDF to quickly view the details of that investor's notice.

What’s valuable about this change?

Get the information you need, faster.

Save time by no longer having to scroll through pages of notices until you find the right LP. Easily search and select the LP to be automatically directed to that LPs notice.

What do I need to do?

  1. Log into your Carta account and navigate to the Activity tab
  2. Click into the details of an active capital call in your task list
  3. Scroll down to Notification to Investors and select the Document Outline icon
  4. Then, select the LP to review their capital call notice

Capital Activity Quick Search

Capital Activity Quick Search

Sound ON

Invalid domain for site key.

ERROR for site owner:

Invalid domain for site key

reCAPTCHA

3 years ago3/7/2023

Request Distributions in Carta

What's new?

GPs can now easily request distributions in Carta.

What’s valuable about this change?

Distributions made smoother. Request, view, and approve your distributions in the same place you manage your fund.

What do I need to do?

  1. Login to your Carta account, select the entity, and navigate to the Capital activity tab
  2. Click “Request distribution” and enter the amount of capital to be distributed
  3. Enter distribution details including distribution notice, money transfer dates, and source of proceeds
  4. Select “Continue”, review the distribution details, and Submit

Request Distributions in Carta

Request Distributions in Carta

Sound ON

Invalid domain for site key.

ERROR for site owner:

Invalid domain for site key

reCAPTCHA

Note: For same day processing, the request must be made before 3:00pm EST.

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit this support article for a more detailed view into distributions.

3 years ago2/28/2023

Carta Deal Pro Forma

What’s new?

With Carta's new Deal pro forma tool you can generate an accurate deal-ready pro forma model with iterative calculations in just a few minutes. Users will be able to create a deal-ready pro forma that takes into account all the nuances of the model and handles the complicated conversion math for SAFEs and Notes.

What's important or valuable about this?

Carta automates the process of building a pro forma so that it can be completed on the Carta platform within minutes. Carta Deal Proforma eliminates unnecessary iterative and redundant work. With the new tool you can increase the capacity for companies to be more versatile with their modeling as it’s easy to make incremental changes instead of starting from scratch. Starting today you can:

What do I need to do?

Carta Deal Pro Forma will be available to all Carta customers in their Scenario Modeling tab.

How does it work?

Under Fundraising > Scenario Modeling > Pro forma tab,  you can see create a pro forma and generate a full view of your next round and export a deal-ready pro forma cap table.

You can:

Have a question or feedback? Visit our support site.

Pro Forma :: 2023.02.27

Click for sound

.

Shubhi Nigam

3 years ago2/27/2023

Streamline document sharing

What's new?

A new column in the Document Library shows you if a document has been shared or not and who it has been shared with.

What's important or valuable about this change?

These enhancements will help you streamline document sharing workflows, such as sharing a large volume of Form K-1s with interest holders ahead of tax season. Easily keep track of which documents have been shared with interest holders and which ones have not. You can also filter the Document Library by sharing status which can help you quickly see which documents still need to be shared.

What do I need to do?

See the new ‘Shared with’ column in the Documents Library. You can filter down to ‘Shared documents’ or ‘Not shared documents’ by clicking on the filtering menu in the Documents Library search bar.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on the Documents Library and distributing Form K-1s, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago2/27/2023

Enhanced visibility into transferred interests

What's new?

When you transfer an interest in Carta, you can now see all the information related to the transaction in the event details.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Gain complete visibility into every transfer transaction and see clearly in the event details if an interest was issued from a transfer as opposed to a new issuance on the cap table.

Track changes to the interest during the transaction and the issuance details, including where the interest was transferred from, to who, quantity, price, and total amount paid for the transfer.

What do I need to do?

You can see the details of each transfer transaction in the event details:

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on transferring interests, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago2/27/2023

View interest holder details and track employee IDs

What's new?

You can now get a comprehensive view of interest holders, including demographic information, interests issued to them, and documents shared with them. Additionally, you can now track employee IDs in Carta.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Enhancements to the interest holder details provide a single source of truth in Carta for who each interest holder is, what interests they hold, and which documents have been shared with them.

When you record an Employee  ID with each interest holder in Carta, you can use it as a unique identifier to streamline reporting across Carta and other systems such as payroll.

What do I need to do?

To get a comprehensive view of an interest holder you can click on any row of the interest holder ledger. This will open a page with various tabs to view the holder details, view all interests that have been issued to them, and view all documents that have been shared with them.

To track and report on employee IDs, edit an interest holder to add their employee ID. Shortly, these employee IDs will also be pulled into our excel based reporting.

View the interest holder demographics in the Summary tab of interest holder details.

View the interests issued to this holder in the Holdings tab.

View the documents associated with these interests and shared with this holder in the Documents tab.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago2/27/2023

New time series graphs show changes in Outstanding Value estimates

What's new?

For each Outstanding Value estimate, a new time series graph shows how the value of the interest has changed over time.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Interest holders now have a visual that represents the change in Outstanding Value and can help them understand the value of their equity and future potential.

What do I need to do?

Admin users can enable Estimated Values, including Outstanding Value, when creating a new interest type or editing an existing one.

Once enabled, the Outstanding Value estimate details will include a time series graph to show the change in value.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on Estimated Values, see our support articles for Admins and Interest Holders.

Des Duggan

3 years ago2/27/2023

New Admin user fields

What's new?

When inviting a new Admin user to your Carta account, you can now capture their job title and company name. The Team & Security page allows you to add new users, edit or remove existing ones, and keep track of who has access.

What's important or valuable about this change?

The new capabilities provide complete visibility into who has access to your Carta account and the type of access they have. This is especially important if you have various internal and external users that need access to your cap table data in Carta, such as law firms or deal teams and back-office admins at Private Equity firms.

What do I need to do?

Visit the Team & Security page to add new users, edit or remove existing ones, and keep track of who has access.

When inviting a new user to your Carta account, select from a pre-set list of job titles or choose Other to input a different job title that is not on the list. You can also add the company name here.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago2/23/2023

Quarterly refresh of salary, total cash, and equity benchmarks

What’s new?

Benchmarks version 2023-23-02

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

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

Salary and total cash compensation benchmark changes in this release reflect a slowing market for talent among startups, falling slightly since last quarter (approximately 1% overall). 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. For example, while Web Engineering and Quality Assurance saw large increases last quarter, this quarter’s data shows decreases in those benchmarks.

Equity benchmarks have decreased approximately 15%, consistent with the decreases that began last quarter as a result of the slowing market. Lower benchmarks cut across most roles and levels, though executive equity grants (particularly at early to mid-stage companies) dropped slightly less, and even increased in some cases.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

Salary - Product, Support, and Operations roles saw the largest increases, approximately 1-2% versus last quarter. Sales, Administrative, and Information Technology roles saw the largest decreases ranging from 3-5%.

Equity - Legal, Support, and Human Resources roles saw the largest decreases. Decreases in Engineering, IT, Finance, and Operations were less pronounced than the overall sample

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

  1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

  2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.

What’s next?

Carta Total Compensation is working to bring International market targets to the Employee and Company Scorecards, as well as developing benchmarks for new specializations.

3 years ago2/10/2023

Improved Employee Matching

What’s new?

This release improves the workflow for matching employees with stakeholders on Carta. Employees with the same name and email as the stakeholder will automatically match, saving their employee ID and thereby linking the stakeholder with the employee record. The improved workflow guides you through reviewing all other employee matches.

How does it work?

For the reviewed matches, you can now ignore, to be reminded next time, or to choose a different stakeholder. These decisions will be saved and will not need to be rematched when running the employee matching workflow. You can now review all matches and update the decisions later.

What do I need to do?

To get started, you will need to connect your external data to Carta either through connecting your HRIS system, uploading a spreadsheet, or pasting the information into Carta directly.

With your external data connected, Carta will attempt to automatically match your employees. From there you review suggested matches, deciding to approve the suggestion, ignore it, remind me later, or manually choosing a different person.

If there are any employees from external data that don’t match at all to Carta stakeholders, you can choose to ignore them or manually choose a person to match.

The workflow is then completed and all matches can be reviewed.

How do I learn more?

For more information on Employee Matching, please read our support article.

3 years ago2/7/2023

Improved Capital Call and Distribution Notices

What's new?

GPs can now include a detailed breakdown of capital in their capital call and distribution notices to maintain transparency with their investors.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Institutional investors prefer to see a breakdown of capital versus a lump sum for internal reporting purposes. We make it easy to provide inventors that information:

Capital calls: Specify what dollar amount or percentage of the amount called is going towards investments, expenses, management fees, and more.

Distributions: Break down the return by dollar amount or percentage into capital, realized gains, or income.

What do I need to do?

On the Overview tab of your portal, select the entity, then navigate to the Capital Activity tab. Click Request Capital Call and follow the steps. Specify the breakdown of capital in the Notes for your Fund Administrator section.

For distributions, click Request Distribution and complete the steps above.

Once submitted, it will appear on the capital call or distribution notice for your review and approval.

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about Carta’s capital activity? Reach out to your account manager or request a demo today.

Milena Wall

3 years ago2/7/2023

Download All Audit Docs with One Click

What's new?

A smoother audit season.

Auditors can now bulk download all fund documents from Carta in a single click.

We’ve bundled all fund audit documents in one place so auditors no longer have to spend time downloading multiple documents from multiple places.

What do I need to do?

Navigate to the Reports & Documents tab of your portal, then select Audit. Documents are bundled into two packages per entity:

Package 1: Formation documents, bank statements, investment documents, invoices & calculations, and partner commitment changes and transfers

Package 2: Partner subscription agreements and side letters, capital call notices, and distribution notices

Select the package and click Download.

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about how Carta can support you during your fund audit? Reach out to your account manager or talk to one of our representatives today.

Kathleen Meil

3 years ago2/7/2023

Improved Investment Valuation Updates

What's new?

GPs can now easily submit valuation updates where positions on an investment have different values or prices per share.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

We’ve improved our in-app valuation updates to be able to handle advanced scenarios, including submitting an update where each asset has a different price per share. This is common for GPs who have invested in the same investment across multiple rounds.

What do I need to do?

Navigate to the Activity tab of your portal and select Valuation Update. Then select the company whose valuation you want to update.

Select Spreadsheet View and enter the date for when the valuation took place. Enter the new value per share to see the gain or loss across all positions.

Then review your valuation update and submit.

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about Carta’s valuation updates? Reach out to your account manager or talk to one of our representatives today.

Milena Wall

3 years ago2/6/2023

Hire internationally using Carta Offer Letters

What’s new

Total Comp customers can now send Offer Letters in 140 international currencies. Candidates will be able to view their Offer Letter in their local currency.

Get started

How do I send an Offer Letter in a non-USD currency?

  1. Navigate to the Current Offers page and click “Create Offer.”
  2. In the “Compensation” section, select the correct currency for the candidate’s Offer Letter. Companies are still able to offer multiple packages for international offers.

3. Enter the Base salary in either the local currency or USD.

4. The Equity value can be entered in USD only. However, you will be able to see this displayed in the local currency selected as well when you preview the Offer Letter before sending it to the candidate.

5. Candidates will be able to view their Offer Letter in the selected local currency.  This includes their benefits, Offer Summary, and the Compensation Projection chart.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

Have additional questions about Carta Offer Letters? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

3 years ago2/3/2023

Share Class Manager Improvements

What’s new?

The Share Class Manager page will be updated this coming Monday, February 6th to make it easier to navigate, and provide a consistent experience when you are updating AOI terms.

We no longer display a "Link AOI" button at the top of the page. The new flow is designed to be simple and intuitive, with the "Manage Share Class" button giving you access to update existing share classes, add new share classes, and link Articles of Incorporation.

What do I need to do?

Navigate to Capitalization > Manage share classes. Under Manage share classes, there will be three options:

Where can I learn more?

Visit the Share Class Manager support article or contact us via the In-App Help Center.

Will WD

3 years ago2/2/2023

GP Activity Tab

What's new?

We’re introducing a new way for Carta GPs to have greater visibility into their relationship with their fund administrator.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

GPs can now submit, view, and track the progress of their fund admins tasks, like sending capital calls or preparing financials. Fund managers will receive a notification for any outstanding tasks or if there’s an action required.

GPs can use the Activity tab to stay up to date on critical fund events, like reviewing financials or management fees.

What do I need to do?

On the Overview tab of your portal, navigate to the Activity tab.

You can view and complete tasks assigned to you by your fund administrator. Click Details to view additional information about the task like the date it was created, progress, and status.

Scroll down to see what your fund admins are working on. Click Details to view additional information about their task like which fund admin is working on the task and the progress.

Easily request a capital call or submit a valuation update. Once submitted, it will appear in the fund admin section for you to track to completion.

Select Task History to view an archive of all past tasks completed by you and your fund administrator.

This feature currently services capital calls, valuation updates, SPV formations, and reviewing and approving management fees, SOIs, and financials.

We will be making further improvements to the Activity tab over the coming weeks including the ability to request a wire, submit an expense, and message with your fund admin.

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about the Activity tab? Reach out to your account manager or request a demo today.

Milena Wall

3 years ago2/2/2023

Private Dilution Report (Beta)

What's new?

Private dilution reports can be run on Carta.

How does it work?

Private company administrators will be able to run a dilution report that will provide them with diluted shares, average trading prices, and supporting tabs to back out the incremental shares tab.

In this initial release, the following inputs will be available:

  1. Average and weighted average trading prices, including the ability to add Fair Market Values on weekends and holidays
  2. Diluted shares
  3. Supporting tabs to help users recalculate their incremental shares tab

In the future, Carta will also support:

What do I need to do to get started?

To participate in the beta and receive early access to this report, please reach out to us at 718@carta.com.

Samantha Widman

3 years ago1/31/2023

International Bands and Total Cash Compensation Data for Customer Success

What’s new?

We have two exciting updates now available in Carta Total Comp. You can now use:

International adjustments

Users will now be able to view salary and equity benchmarks on the Bands page based on adjustments from our US benchmarks. In this initial release, users will have access to adjustments for 44 countries.

How do I see international adjustments?

You can view international adjustments by:

  1. Visiting the Plan page and scrolling down to International Market Adjustments. This section will show you suggested adjustments for salary and equity across 45 countries. These suggested Adjustments are based on Carta data and our knowledge of local market practices.

  2. You can override these suggested adjustments to better match your company’s comp philosophy. Click into them to edit, and save your new adjustment by clicking the check box.

  3. Visit the Bands page to view the adjusted salary & equity benchmarks. Find any of the 45 countries by selecting it from the Location dropdown.

Total cash compensation benchmarks for Customer Success

Carta will now provide total cash compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area. Total cash compensation is defined as base salary plus target variable compensation. 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile data are accessible on the Bands page. No other benchmarks have changed in this update.

How do I see total cash compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area?

You can view Total Cash Compensation benchmarks for the Customer Success job area by:

  1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Customer Success” under Area.

  2. Select “Total Cash” for compensation type.

  3. This will allow you to view total cash compensation bands for levels 1 - 11 for the Customer Success job area.

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

  1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

  2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on "Update" in the top left.

Learn more

Have additional questions? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

What’s next?

Carta Total Comp is working on updated salary and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations.

3 years ago1/26/2023

Introducing Agreement Execution for issuing new interests

What's new?

You can now generate fully executed legal agreements when issuing interests with Carta LLC.

What's important or valuable about this change?

With the new Agreement Execution functionality, you can simplify the end-to-end issuance workflow, increase efficiency, and auditability:

What do I need to do?

To get started with Agreement Execution, you will need to first work with our team to set up a new interest agreement template. Get started by navigating to Documents > Templates.

Request a new template by clicking on the button on this page.

You need to provide us with the following items to set up a new template:

Once your template has been set up, Carta Staff will notify you and you can use it to issue new interests. Watch our demo video to learn more.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on interest agreement templates, please read our support article.

Des Duggan

3 years ago1/23/2023

Set up and send your first Offer Letter with a few clicks

What’s new?

We're introducing an easy way for new Carta Total Comp users to send their first offer letter in just a few clicks. With our new guided onboarding experience, you can get the most out of CTC immediately.

The setup guide will be marked as complete for users with Offer Letters already set up.

Get started

You must have "Full Admin" permissions to set up Offer Letters.

  1. Navigate to the Offer Letters page and click “Get started.”

  2. Complete the guided onboarding experience to personalize your Offer Letter for your company.

  3. Once you complete your setup, all Admins, Area Leads, and Recruiters will be able to draft, preview, and send Offer Letters.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

If you have additional questions about Offer Letters? Please reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

3 years ago1/20/2023

Automated Refresh Vesting Schedules

What's new?

We are introducing automated refresh vesting schedules in-app. Now, all private companies have a template ready for refresh vesting, a schedule that mimics Carta's equity strategy of boxcar grants.

How does it work?

On the vesting schedule templates page (Securities > Templates > Vesting Schedules), you can edit the Refresh Vesting to select when grants under this schedule should start vesting. See detailed instructions to manage vesting templates here.

You will have options from 1 to 4 years after the issue date.

You are all set!

Now, you can start adding, modifying or applying the Refresh Vesting when issuing new securities, and we will automatically calculate and input the vesting start date for you, based on the criteria selected on the template.

Where can I learn more?

Visit this support article or contact us via the In-App Help Center.

3 years ago1/20/2023

Share Class Conversions (Beta)

What's new?

Share Class Conversions are now self-serve on Carta.

What’s important about this change?

Skip contacting Support for share class conversions. With our new self-service tool, your law firm will be able to complete this for you in minutes.

Select individual shares, or convert entire share classes when needed. Once the shares classes are converted, Carta handles canceling the existing certificates, issuing new stock certificates, and guiding signatories and security holders through the process of executing signatures.

What do I need to do?

This feature is currently in beta with law firms and we are releasing it to more users on a rolling basis. By April 2023, all company legal admins will have access to in-app share class conversions too.

If you need to perform a share class conversion, reach out to your outside counsel. If you don’t have a law firm, contact Carta Support using the In-App Help Center.

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit this support article to learn more about the step-by-step process.

Vrushali Paunikar

3 years ago1/9/2023

Share Offer Letters via a link

What’s new

CTC customers can now send Offer Letters to candidates with a simple URL link if they are not using Carta’s candidate acceptance flow. This will allow companies to send Offer Letters to candidates via an existing email thread with a candidate or additional signatory tool of their choosing.

Get started

How do I send an offer letter via link?

  1. Navigate to the Offer Letters page

  2. Draft, preview, and save an offer letter by clicking “Create new offer”.

3. Once you have saved your offer letter, click “Copy link”, the URL can be pasted and shared to grant access to the published Offer Letter.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

3 years ago1/4/2023

Send an Offer Letter directly from the Bands page

What’s new

All CTC customers can now save time by seamlessly previewing and sending Offer Letters straight from the Bands tab.

Get started

How do I send an Offer Letter from the Bands page?

Here’s how to get started:

1. Navigate to the Bands page.

2. Click on the Job Breakdown for a particular Role.

3. Click “Create offer” to be shown a preview offer letter with a recommended compensation package based on your company’s Plan information, specific for that Role.

4. Companies who have already configured the required Offer Letter settings will be redirected to the “Create New Offer” page with pre-filled salary and Role information.

Companies who have not configured the required Offer Letter settings will be shown a preview of an Offer Letter for the specific Role. Admins can click “Send your first offer” to be guided on how to configure the required Offer Letter settings before sending your company’s first Carta Offer Letter.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Offer Letters resource center for more details.

Nikhita Gupta

3 years ago12/21/2022

Notify Users of Insufficient Funds

What’s New

When a user’s bank account does not have sufficient funds to pay for the exercise via ACH, Carta will warn the user when reviewing the exercise. The user will have the option to change the selected bank account, lower the amount of options to exercise, or proceed with the exercise.

Additional improvements to the review exercise page better highlight key details of the exercise, reducing the need for scrolling. The UI also now explicitly states that the total represents a cost to the user.

Users choosing to proceed are then given a final message that an underfunded exercise may be canceled.

Who this affects

This feature is available to employees who have set up their ACH bank account on Carta through Plaid.

How it works

Carta is using Plaid Balance to confirm the available balance of the associated bank account prior to submitting the exercise request. No account balance information is stored on Carta. This feature does not block users from submitting exercise requests, rather warns them about the potential risk of a canceled exercise.

What happens if the selected bank account doesn’t have enough money for the exercise?

We now warn users that their account doesn’t seem to have enough money to cover the exercise cost. We allow them to proceed anyway, as they could potentially add funds to the account before Carta attempts to pull the funds. If it turns out there are insufficient funds, we will cancel the exercise.

How does Carta know how much money is in my bank account? By connecting a bank account through Plaid, we can use Plaid’s APIs to retrieve real-time balance information at the time of the exercise request. Checking the accounts available balance represents the predicted balance net of any pending transactions. This type of information is often used to protect against overdrafts and non-sufficient funds fees. For more information on Plaid Balance, see here.

What if I manually connected my bank account? Users can always connect their bank accounts manually instead of using Plaid. For these users we cannot know their available balance and they will not receive any warnings about insufficient funds.

Timing

How do I learn more or get help?

Visit Carta Support for more details on Exercising Using ACH and Setting Up Your Bank Account

3 years ago12/20/2022

New job specializations, quarterly refresh of equity benchmarks, and benchmark version selector

What’s new?

We have 3 exciting updates now available in Carta Total Comp. You can now use:

View new job area specializations

Users will now be able to view and use new salary and equity benchmarks for the following specializations:

How do I see benchmarks for the additional specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the Digital Marketing specialization by:

  1. Visiting the Bands page and selecting “Marketing” under Area. Once the marketing job area is selected, you can select the digital marketing specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

  1. This will allow you to view salary/equity bands for levels 1 - 7 for the Digital Marketing specialization.

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

How do benchmarks for the additional specializations 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 Administrative (Office Management), HR (Recruiting), Marketing (Digital Marketing), Strategy (Partnerships) specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specialization not the job area.

Use refreshed equity benchmarks version 2022-12-20

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

We have updated equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations. These benchmarks are a reflection of the current market, characterized by limited fundraising, a slowdown in hiring, and a potential decrease in some company valuations. As a result, these benchmarks show decreases in target equity compensation. This is due to having a higher concentration in earlier stage valuations and more junior level roles. Equity benchmarks across mid-to-late stage companies and more senior level roles are flat to slightly above our previous benchmarks. Looking forward to 2023, assuming the overall environment remains the same, we would anticipate continued volatility and potential decreases in equity benchmarks.

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions in one of two ways:

  1. Navigating to  the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

  2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.

View the current market without affecting your Scorecard

Carta is focused on providing your business with the latest market compensation data. We understand that your plan is tied to a point-in-time, making your benchmark version an integral part of your compensation philosophy. We also understand that viewing future versions can help in understanding the current market, headcount planning, and more. Carta is excited to announce that you can now access the latest compensation benchmarks without updating your Plan.

The Bands page will now default to Carta Total Compensation’s latest benchmarks. However, regardless of what is selected on the Bands page, the Scorecard will remain associated with your selected Plan’s benchmark. Users can easily toggle between the latest benchmarks and those associated with their compensation plan using the Benchmark version dropdown. How do I toggle the Bands page to display the benchmark associated with my Plan?

  1. Visit the Bands page and click the Benchmark version dropdown.

  2. Select “Default Plan” to view the Bands page using the benchmark associated with your compensation plan.

What’s next?

Carta Total Comp is working on international geo-adjustments.

Jeffrey Glusman

3 years ago12/15/2022

Custom reporting product updates

What's new?

We are making updates to the equity reporting experience on January 9, 2023.

What's important about this change?

Next year, users will gain access to new reports on Carta. Some of these updates will include auditable equity plan balance and cap table reports. As part of these improvements, we will be limiting features like flexible columns and filters for Custom Reports starting January 9th.

What do I need to do?

We recommend that you download any reports that you may need to reference in the future. However, you can access the data you need using our extensive library of report templates after January 9th.

How do I learn more or get help?

Please reach out to our Support team using the In-App Help Center. Log in to Carta.

Jared Thomas

3 years ago12/14/2022

Customize cap table views

What's new?

Admins now have the ability to sort the interest type columns in cap table views.

What's important or valuable about this change?

You have one more option to customize the cap table view to your preferences. You can now sort the interest type columns in the cap table views to reflect how you want to view and export data.

What do I need to do?

On the cap table views page, click on Columns. You can show, hide, or rearrange the interest type columns by dragging and dropping them in the order you want. Within each interest type, you can also show or hide specific columns.

Any changes you make to the interest type columns in cap table views will also be reflected in the export.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago12/14/2022

Data room usability enhancements

What's new?

Admins can now download data rooms, update access permissions, and view a complete activity log to see who is viewing files stored in your data rooms.

What's important or valuable about this change?

What do I need to do?

To download a data room, navigate to the menu on the right side of the data room and click Download.

To update access permissions, navigate to Manage data room > Manage sharing. You can see who the data room was previously shared with and can remove their access.

To view the activity log, navigate to the menu on the right side of the data room and click View activity.

This can also be done at the folder or file level, showing a filtered list depending on where the activity log is accessed from.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago12/14/2022

Introducing estimated values for equity

What's new?

You can now enable estimated values for interests. Carta can automatically calculate and provide estimates for vested, unvested, and outstanding values as well as threshold gain or loss for profits interests, and MOIC.

What's important or valuable about this change?

You can demonstrate the value of equity to interest holders, including employees, investors, board members, and advisors. They can see estimated values for their interests in their Carta portfolio.

There are multiple values available for you to choose from and each value includes information on how it is being calculated, which improves transparency.

You have the flexibility to choose whether you want to calculate estimated values at all, make the values visible to Admins only or to Admins and interest holders.

What do I need to do?

Equity value estimates are based on the latest per-unit value. A per-unit value can come from a Carta 409A valuation or company Admins can manually input values obtained from other sources, such as a board determination or a recent fundraising round.

Add estimated value while creating a new Interest Type

Complete the flow until you reach the section Estimated value.

Click on the drop-down Visible To to select who should be able to view the estimates. Note that you have the ability to determine whether only company administrators will have access to the estimates or if holders will also be able to see them.

Add estimated value while editing an Interest Type

Under Interests and interest types, click on the interest type and on View interest type details.

Click on Edit on the right side of the Estimated values section.

Click on the drop-down Visible To to select who should be able to view the estimates.

Estimated values will be visible to interest holders in their Carta portfolio.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago12/8/2022

Limited Partner Mobile Experience

What's new?

LPs can now manage their investments, all from their mobile device.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Access your investments, now on the go.

LPs can manage their fund investments and personal investments from anywhere, at any time.

What do I need to do?

Download the Carta mobile application, suited for iOS and Android devices, from your app store. Then login using the same information used to login to your LP Portal on the web application. Once on the home screen, select the fund investment or personal investment you’d like to view:

If a fund investment is selected, you’ll be able to view key investment details like called capital and net asset value. Plus, you can view, download, and send all fund investment documents like partner capital account statements (PCAPs) and  K-1s.

If a personal investment is selected, you’ll be able to view key ownership information like share amount and issue date.

For fund investments, once on Investment Details, scroll to access your fund documents. Select View all  to view, search, and filter all fund documents. Use the search bar at the top to search by document name. Or select Filter to filter by document type like PCAPs, capital calls, or tax.

Once your document is selected, select the export button to markup, send, or download.

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about Carta’s LP mobile experience? Reach out to your account manager or request a demo today.

Spencer Holton

3 years ago12/6/2022

Show employees their bonus programs in their Total Rewards Statement

What’s new

Variable Compensation Programs are now automatically reflected in an employee’s Total Rewards Statements for all Carta Total Compensation customers.

Give employees complete visibility into their total compensation

Show employees all the bonus programs that have been assigned to them in their Total Rewards Statement.

  1. Enable employees to see a complete picture of their compensation, including any variable programs that you’ve assigned to them
  2. Save time with variable compensation programs automatically attached to your employees’ Total Rewards statements, with no additional manual work on your end

Get started

How do I create a Variable Compensation Program and reflect it in my employees’ Total Rewards Statement?

You can get started with VCP in seconds. Here’s how to get started:

  1. Navigate to the Plan page.

  2. Variable Compensation Programs can be found on the bottom half of the page.

  3. Click “Create variable compensation program” to be guided through the process of creating your first variable compensation program.

  4. Once you have created a variable compensation program(s) and assigned those to the correct employees, they will automatically be shown in an employee’s Total Rewards Statement.

Learn more

Visit the Carta Total Rewards resource center for more details.

Have additional questions about Total Rewards Statements? Reach out to your Account Manager or contact our Support Team.

3 years ago12/6/2022

Introducing international in-app custom assumptions

What's new?

Financial reporting can require flexibility. We’ve added new functionality to adapt to the reporting needs of your business with in-app custom assumption overrides.

What’s valuable about this change?

You won’t have to download a report from Carta and manipulate it in an external document. You can customize your reports right in the Carta web application, while remaining International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 2 compliant. Here’s what you can customize*:

  1. Expected term
  2. Volatility
  3. Fair market value
  4. Interest rate
  5. Fair value

What do I need to do?

You can access Financial Reporting directly from your Carta account. Simply go to the Compliance tab and select Financial Reporting. You can apply custom assumption overrides after you’ve run a report within the Fair Values tab of Financial Reporting.

How do I learn more or get help?

Contact our financial reporting support team.

\* These customization options can be applied to tranches of an award. Users will be able to change the assumption on a tranche-level basis for a single award.

Samantha Widman

3 years ago12/6/2022

New Toggle Optionality to View SOIs

What's new?

You can now toggle between fund or firm view for your SOI.

The SOI review flow allows fund admins to send clients their SOIs either for the entire firm or at the fund level to review and approve at quarter and year-end. Some clients enjoy seeing their entire SOI in one view, while others need to review it by fund either due to preference, or the timing of when each fund SOI is wrapped up for the period.

Because both options have been valuable, we have now added a toggle onto the SOI review screen that allows clients to see their SOI broken down by either investment or by fund. We've also included fund totals for cost and value, as we heard requests for this quick reference from clients as well.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Depending on customer needs or preferences, the ease of this view change will make accessing either your fund- or firm-level SOIs super efficient.

Previously, customers needed to go through their fund admin to prepare a new version of their SOI. Now they can do it quickly and efficiently without having to go through their fund admin.

What do I need to do?

Login to your Carta Platform and check it out today. You will be able to view your SOI by investment or fund by selecting the toggle option as seen below:

How do I learn more or get help?

Have additional questions about these views or SOI in general? Reach out to your fund admin or account manager today.

Patrick Driscoll

3 years ago12/6/2022

On-demand educational content for employees with Tax Advisory

What's new

Employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer now have access to on-demand educational content in their Carta portfolio. As an employee, you have the ability to re-watch your company’s recorded webinar, as well as view chapters of key concepts about your equity. The video chapters cover topics such as exercising your option, selling your options and other important topics.

Who this affects

This feature is available to employees who have access to Carta Tax Advisory through their employer. Employees will be able to view their company's recorded webinar once it has been completed.

Where to find it

As an employee, navigate to the Learn section of the Tax Advice page in your Carta portfolio. If you have any additional questions, please schedule a session with an Equity Tax Advisor.

Jordan Agnew

3 years ago12/6/2022

Third Party Audit Partner Portal has Launched

What's new?

Carta has empowered our audit partners by creating an audit partner portal that will house all relevant documents to successfully complete a fund audit.

We have launched this portal to make it easier to organize and streamline responses to questions and requests from auditors which historically have taken time and effort to consolidate.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Audit Partners will have one location to go to find all of our documents. Fund administrators can easily organize and check for outstanding documents. This will save time and effort for auditors and fund administrators, making the end-of-year easier for our customers by proxy.

Documents that will now be added to this list include:

Fund administrators will add these to the portal or request them from customers when appropriate.

What do I need to do?

Generally, you do not need to do anything as this will affect third -party audit partners for the most part. However, there are a few things you can do to ensure that this offering is as strong as possible:

  1. Ensure that you have selected an audit partner for your end-of-year needs.
  2. Send all of your audit-related documents (see list above) to your fund administrator. You can do this by uploading them in the app, or sending them to your FA via email.
  3. Work with both your audit partner and your fund admin on questions about these documents over the course of the end-of-year audit process.

How do I learn more or get help?

You can ask your fund administrator or your audit partner if you have any questions. However, it is important to know that this predominantly affects your audit partner, not you as the customer.

Have additional questions about this or are you curious about what your tax and audit partner will do this end-of-year season? Check out our VC Tax and Audit Support Article here.

Patrick Driscoll

3 years ago12/6/2022

Performance Metrics are Now Available on Capital Account Statements

What's new?

Carta is thrilled to announce performance metrics can now be shown on the capital account statement. Fund preparers now have the ability to include performance metrics including TVPI, DPI, RVPI, and Net IRR.

Note that customers need to reach out to their fund administrator to activate this offering.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Institutional investors will use this as they require these metrics for their ILPA reports. This feature brings fund preparers one step closer to being ILPA compliant. Additionally, this streamlines access to these metrics for multiple stakeholders including customers, auditors, LPs, and more.

Depending on their strategy, users can toggle these on or off from their statements.

What do I need to do?

Reach out to your Fund Administrator to request that these be turned on. Note that you cannot do it in the application.

See the example below:

Contact your account manager or fund administrator for more information or questions.

Patrick Driscoll

3 years ago12/2/2022

Off-Platform Payment Settlement (Capital Markets)

What's new?

Carta Liquidity now offers more optionality when paying transaction proceeds following a tender offer or other private secondary transaction. Issuers can now elect to have proceeds for one or more sellers be paid outside of the Carta Liquidity platform via a third-party (including the Issuer). Below are several use cases that Carta now supports:

How does it work?

During the setup phase of a transaction, an Issuer can elect to have the transaction proceeds for one or more sellers paid off-platform. The Issuer will inform Carta which participants should receive their proceeds off-platform, and the transaction’s Offer to Purchase (OTP) will describe the method by which participants will receive their net sale proceeds.

At settlement, Carta will deposit proceeds for participants not selected for off-platform payment into their Carta brokerage accounts. For a company repurchase (share buyback), no further action is taken by Carta for the balance of the proceeds as the Issuer will be responsible for the distribution through payroll or otherwise. In the case of a third-party tender offer, Carta will send the balance of the proceeds to the Issuer to handle the distribution to the remaining sellers.

At the close of the transaction, the total amount of money distributed by Carta or a third-party will be recorded in the Transaction Summary Report for the Issuer and the Trade Confirmation for each seller.

(a) Issuer Transaction Summary Report

(b) Trade Confirmation

(c) Statement Cycle Report

Distribute tender offer sale proceeds off-platform through payroll or other means for more payment flexibility

The off-platform payment settlement feature will:

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Do you want to run a tender offer or other private secondary transaction with a fully-integrated cap table experience? Reach out to Carta Liquidity’s Corporate Coverage team at company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to figure out the best path towards liquidity.

Note:

1. Brokerage accounts and other brokerage services are offered through Carta Capital Markets, LLC. Carta Capital Markets, LLC is a member of FINRA/SIPC.

Eitan Itzkowitz

3 years ago12/2/2022

Dilution Report (Public Markets)

What’s new?

Public company administrators can now run a Dilution Report to help them calculate their company’s diluted earnings per share (EPS). The Dilution Report will contain the simple and weighted average of common stock outstanding (WASO), the number of incremental shares, the average trading price for common shares, and supporting information for all calculations. This feature will simplify diluted EPS calculations and help public companies meet their diluted EPS reporting requirement for their quarterly income statements.

How does it work?

To calculate diluted EPS, an Issuer will need the WASO and shares outstanding (new common shares issued at conversion - repurchased shares) for the reporting period in question. The Issuer will calculate its own net income, preferred dividends, and after-tax cost of interest.

Note: * denotes fields not provided by Carta

After logging into their Carta accounts, public company administrators can navigate to the Financial Reporting section of their profile to generate a new Dilution Report for a desired reporting period. Dilution reports are only available for periods that begin on or after an Issuer’s IPO date.

After the report is generated, the administrator can download an Excel file which includes calculated values for simple and weighted average of common shares outstanding, the number of incremental shares, the average trading price for common shares, and supporting information. The file also includes an “Errors” tab to flag any data issues that should be resolved to produce an accurate report.

Simplify diluted earnings per share calculations to meet quarterly reporting requirements for public companies

With the Dilution Report, public company administrators can:

Start using the Dilution Report now!

Do you need additional help in using the Dilution Report? Refer to this support article for more information. For further assistance, reach out to Carta’s Financial Reporting team at 718@carta.com.

Samantha Widman

3 years ago11/30/2022

Wire Instructions Update

What’s New

We have made UI improvements to our Wire Instructions for online wire exercises. The new UI better highlights the amount, timeline, and considerations for completing the transfer. The updates include:

Who this affects

All international users who are exercising options via online wire.

How it works

The updated Wire Instructions will be available in the same places as before (Tasks view, PDF, Exercise Progress view). You can see the new templates here:

Tasks view

PDF

Exercise Progress view

Email communication

Both Approval and Reminder emails show the date for Carta to receive funds.

Timing

Additional Resources

Support Article: Exercising Via Online Wire

3 years ago11/29/2022

Land top talent by giving candidates optionality during negotiations

What’s new

Flexible Offer Letters are now available to all Carta Total Compensation customers.

Who this affects

All Carta Total Compensation customers.

Let candidates choose a compensation breakdown that’s best for them.

Flexible Offer Letters adds optionality to our Better Offer Letter. Now, you can:

How it works

Start using Flexible Offer Letters today.

Offer Letter Creation Form

When creating an offer letter, you can add up to three  packages in the Compensation section.

Candidate Experience

The candidate will be able to select which package is represented in the First year compensation summary.

The candidate will be able to compare each package against each other in the Compensation Projection chart, too.

For companies using Carta’s acceptance flow, candidates will be prompted to confirm which compensation package they would like to accept in a modal prior to agreeing to the offer.

Companies that are not using Carta’s acceptance flow in the offer letter can correspond with candidates offline to determine the offer letter package the candidate would like to accept.

Have additional questions?

Check out our Support Center or reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

3 years ago11/29/2022

Capital Activity Tool

What's new?

Capital calls and distributions have historically been completed via communications directly with your fund admin outside of Carta’s Platform. This system led to potential delays due to a lack of transparency and tracking capabilities.

Carta has now launched the new and improved Capital Activity Tool. This combines capital calls and distributions on Carta’s platform, enabling your fund admin to complete your requests easily from within while maintaining transparency and communications with you and your stakeholders.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

Carta has reworked our capital call and distribution processes to streamline your capital to get it to where it needs to go as quickly as possible.

The new capital activity tool does the following:

With this new infrastructure, Carta will start adding features at a high velocity. Stay tuned for improvements to in-kind support, notice customization, scheduled LP reminders, sub-close interest, and more.

What do I need to do?

Continue to call capital via the in app process. This will primarily affect your fund administrators. We will transition all funds to this new process shortly.

How do I learn more or get help?

Please refer to these screenshots for a sneak peek of what your fund admins can now select.

Your fund admind can now select from a menu of options in the Capital Activity Tool, including:

Fund admins can now add a due date and the contribution event easily.

Fund admins can now select from a variety of buckets for your capital activity and decide how to allocate across investors.

Fund admins can now get more granular with data, allowing them to make sure they call and distribute the correct amount for each stakeholder.

Track all of your capital activity in one easy location.

Patrick Driscoll

3 years ago11/10/2022

Quarterly Salary + Total Cash Benchmark Refresh

What’s new?

Benchmarks version 2022-11-10

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

We have updated salary benchmarks for all job areas and specializations. We have also updated total cash compensation benchmarks for sales roles. Salary benchmark changes in this release reflect a slowing market for talent among startups. Most job areas saw little no change versus our last release, with increases/decreases of less than 1%. We saw most of the volatility in this release within engineering specializations, which have smaller sample sizes than the broader job area. Most notably, Mobile, QA, and Web Engineering all saw large increases across peer groups and levels, bringing pay for the various engineering specializations into closer alignment.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

IT, Sales, and Administration roles saw the largest increases ranging from 2%-5%, though the increases to IT and Administration roles are largely due to sample size changes. Support roles saw the largest decrease (4%). All other job areas changed by less than 1%.

Increases:

Decreases:

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

  1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

  2. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.

What’s next?

Carta Total Compensation is working on updates and improvements to our equity benchmarks in order to reflect the current labor market.

Jeffrey Glusman

3 years ago11/9/2022

Interest holder addresses

What's new?

You can now keep a record of interest holder addresses.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Gain a single source of truth with all interest holder information centralized in Carta. Admins can now input a physical address when adding a new interest holder or editing an existing one and this address can be viewed in the interest holder ledger and in the interest details.

What do I need to do?

When issuing interests to new holders, Admins can now bulk upload addresses in the interest holder spreadsheet. You will see different columns for different address fields. Upon issuing, the address will be saved on the new interest holder.

When adding a new interest holder or editing an existing one, Admins can record the address in the new Address section. Inputting the Country/Region will make the other address fields appear.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on managing interest holders, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago11/9/2022

Exercising options and warrants

What's new?

We’ve simplified Carta’s UI to help Admins exercise multiple options or warrants in one streamlined workflow.

What's important or valuable about this change?

When interest holders elect to exercise their outstanding options and warrants, you can now enter the exercises all together in Carta to reflect the transactions on the cap table. You can also issue new interests to the holders and keep a record of the transaction in the interest history.

What do I need to do?

In the interests ledger, navigate to the interests you want to exercise in the left sidebar.

Select one, multiple or all interests.

Navigate to the Action button and select Exercise.

The new UI will walk you through exercising the interests, including:

After you confirm, the interests resulting from the exercise will be issued, affected interests will be updated, and cap table reports will reflect the exercises. You can also view the transaction in the interest history.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago11/3/2022

Tax Withholding Estimates during Order Entry (Capital Markets)

What's new?

Sellers participating in a private market secondary transaction, such as a tender offer, on the CartaX ATS can now view their estimated tax withholdings* during the Order Entry phase. Equipped with estimated tax information, sellers who are US-based employees will be able to make a more informed decision when determining sell preferences and better anticipate their net proceeds.

How does it work?

Issuers sponsoring a tender offer or another structured transaction will provide Carta with their employees’ city, state, and/or federal jurisdictional tax rates. Carta will use the applicable tax rates to calculate their individual estimated tax withholding.

As sellers select which of their eligible stock holdings to sell during the Order Entry period, the Proceeds Calculator on the right hand side of the screen will automatically update and calculate what their estimated net proceeds may be after fees and taxes*.

Sellers can then click on “View tax details” (hyperlink within the red box above) to view a breakdown of the estimated tax withholdings by security type and tax jurisdiction.

Enable your employees to understand their estimated tax obligations earlier in a tender offer when placing their sell orders.

The Tax Withholding Estimates during Order Entry will:

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

*Note - The estimated tax withholdings is for illustrative purposes only. The withholding amount shown is only an estimate. The actual amount withheld from a seller’s proceeds may differ significantly from the amount shown. Tax withholding is not a final calculation of taxes due. A seller may have a greater or lesser tax obligation than the amount withheld by the Issuer, and the seller is responsible for determining whether and when any additional tax payments are required.

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.

Eitan Itzkowitz

3 years ago10/31/2022

Tagging portfolio companies within firm investment view

What’s new?

We’ve improved our investment tagging feature so you can easily categorize, filter, and view your investments by industry, geography, and more.

Investment tagging allows you to enter any custom category attached to your portfolio companies so you can personalize the information on the Investments tab of your fund dashboard. Plus, you can now easily view the performance of your investments based on category.

How it works

Category refers to the classification, like industry, while tag refers to the type of classification, like fintech.

To apply a new tag, edit an existing tag, or create a new category, navigate to your Overview tab, then click Investments. Select “+” next to the investment you’d like to personalize.

To add a new category or a new tag (not already in the dropdown), click Manage All Tags & Categories.

To add a new category, select the dropdown next to Categories and click + Add New. Enter the category, and select Add new tag category. To remove a category, select the category from the drop down, and then click Delete category.

To add a new tag within a category, enter the tag in the box labeled tag name and click Add tag. To remove a tag, select the trash can symbol next to the tag.

To edit a tag for an existing category, select the dropdown next to the tag, then select the new tag you’d like to apply to that investment.

To add an additional tag or category to your investment (the tag and category must already exist in the dropdown), select + Add Another Tag. To delete an additional tag or category, select - to the right of the tag.

Once your new category or tags are entered, click Submit. You will now see a more detailed view of your investments. To filter by category, select Filter, enter the filtering condition, and select Apply Filters.

Who this effects

Anyone utilizing Carta’s fund administration, LP Portal, Portfolio Insights and free firm portfolio can access this feature.

Kali Borkoski

3 years ago10/31/2022

Communication Center (Public Markets)

What's new?

Public company administrators can now utilize the brand new Communication Center to send secure communications to stakeholders in the company’s equity plan managed on Carta. This feature allows public companies to create and send timely communications to equity plan members in bulk. Recipients can be selected by relationship type and other filters to further customize the message’s distribution list. In addition, the Communication Center dashboard allows company administrators to view sent and drafted messages, and see which stakeholders have viewed a communication.

Examples of communications include, but are not limited to: instructions on how stakeholders can manage their equity at Carta, employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) offerings, upcoming trading windows, and updated disclosures.

How does this work?

Permissioned company administrators may access the Communication Center. Before sending any messages, company administrators should check that the company’s Stakeholder Ledger is up-to-date to ensure messages are sent to the correct individuals. At minimum, an individual’s Relationship, Contact Email, and Officer Code (if applicable) should be updated.

Once these steps are completed, company administrators can proceed to the Communication Center dashboard (found under the Employee tab of the main navigation toolbar).

Here, company administrators with Company Editor or Legal Administrator roles can compose, review, and send secure messages with or without PDF attachments. They can also filter for previously sent and drafted messages.

When choosing who to send a communication to, the Company Editor or Legal Administrator may send bulk messages by Relationship Type (e.g., Employee, Ex-Employee, Advisor), and then also filter recipient lists by Officer Code, Trading Restrictions, the employee stock purchasing plan (ESPP) an individual is a member of and associated status, or the outstanding security type(s) held by each stakeholder.

Company administrators will have the opportunity to review the communication, save it as a draft, remove individuals as needed, and reconfirm the recipients before sending the message.

After sending the message, stakeholders will receive an email notification that they received the secure message. They must log in to their Carta accounts to view the message, and messages on the Carta platform may not be forwarded to an external email account.

Company administrators who can view the Communication Center dashboard can monitor which stakeholders have viewed the communication.

Send secure messages and archive them safely in a centralized location with Carta’s Communication Center.

The Communication Center allows public company administrators to:

Start using the Communication Center now!

Need help with the Communication Center? Refer to this support article for detailed instructions on how to manage, view, and send out your next secure message.

Carly Perera

3 years ago10/28/2022

SEC Rule 144 Affiliate Workflow Updates (Public Markets)

What’s new?

Carta improved how public company administrators can manage and designate equity plan stakeholders as Rule 144 Affiliates. Designating stakeholders as Affiliates ensures that their trade orders get reviewed before execution through a separate SEC Rule 144 due diligence workflow and that those trades are properly captured for Form 144 inclusion. Company administrators can also now easily access and review a filtered list of Rule 144 Affiliates from their Company Summary page.

The management of Rule 144 Affiliate status has been separated from the Officer Code workflow to simplify this process and to ensure trading blackout periods for stakeholders with certain Officer Code(s) will not be impacted by one’s Rule 144 Affiliate status.

How does it work?

Company administrators can update Rule 144 Affiliate status by clicking on “Manage Employees” on the Company Summary page.

From there, administrators can click on each stakeholder’s record and view their current Rule 144 Affiliate status. Administrators can also track the Effective Date of when a stakeholder was first marked as an Affiliate without leveraging Officer Codes.

To designate an individual as a Rule 144 Affiliate, administrators can check the box within the Update Stakeholder flow:

For enhanced security, Carta put controls in place to prevent stakeholders from inadvertently being removed as an Affiliate. Please contact Carta Support to help remove a stakeholder’s Rule 144 Affiliate status.

Easily manage, review, and designate public equity plan stakeholders as Rule 144 Affiliates to ensure trading compliance via an improved workflow.

With the improved Rule 144 Affiliate workflow, company administrators can:

Start using the improved Rule 144 Affiliate status workflow now!

Do you want to update Rule 144 Affiliate status for individual stakeholders or in bulk? Refer to this support article for more information.

Bryan Wells

3 years ago10/26/2022

Optional Sections in Carta Closings

What’s new?

With Optional Sections, a new feature of Carta Closings, fund managers now have the ability to further customize their LPs subscription experience.

Create an even faster closings experience for your investors.

Our Optional Sections feature allows you to hide sections of Carta’s Standard Investor Questionnaire, such as Qualified Purchaser (QP) or Qualified Client (QC), that may not be relevant to your fund or SPV. You can also disable, make optional, or require LPs to provide their wire instructions for future distributions as part of their subscription.

How does it work?

1. On the Closings tab, select Closings Details.  Then, scroll down to Customize Sections.

2. From here, you can make your selections to hide, require, or make optional the  wiring instructions, qualified purchaser, and qualified client sections. Then click Save.

How do I learn more?

To learn more about this feature, please reach out to your account manager.

Have additional questions about Carta Closings? Check out our fund manager resource and LP support article, or request a demo.

Spencer Holton

3 years ago10/26/2022

Updated Scorecard for Total Cash Compensation

What’s new?

Carta has updated the Scorecard to feature total cash compensation targets and compa-ratios for all employees within the sales job area. These targets will leverage the total cash benchmarks in combination with the parameters defined in your Plan. These changes will be reflected in both the company and employee scorecard.

How do I enable total cash compensation targets on the Employee Scorecard?

In order to access the new total cash functionality on the Employee Scorecard the employee must be within the Sales job area, total cash targets will be displayed for these employees regardless if they have been assigned variable compensation. For more information about assigning variable compensation checkout the following support article.

How do I access total cash compensation on the Scorecard?

Carta added the following columns to the Scorecard:

  1. Total Cash
  2. Total Cash Target
  3. Total Cash Ratio

These columns are hidden by default but can be enabled by:

  1. Navigating to the Scorecard and selecting the column dropdown.

  2. Select the “Total Cash” options that you’d like to include from the dropdown.

What’s next?

Carta Total Compensation is working to refresh our salary benchmarks in order to reflect the current labor market.

Jeffrey Glusman

3 years ago10/25/2022

Introducing financial reporting custom properties

What's new?

Custom properties are now available in Carta Financial Reporting. Custom properties are a simple way to classify and organize your Stock-based Compensation (SBC) Expense and Minimum Disclosures reports.

What’s important or valuable about this change?

If a custom property field is populated for a stakeholder, there will be a column in the Tranches tab of the SBC Expense and Minimum Disclosures reports allowing users to allocate expense to individual properties.

What do I need to do?

If custom properties are already created for individual stakeholders, users will just need to run a new reporting period in Financial Reporting to see the property columns populate.

If the user has not yet added custom properties for stakeholders, the columns will not populate. To add custom properties, visit this support article.

How do I learn more or get help?

For additional support on this, contact 718@carta.com

Samantha Widman

3 years ago10/24/2022

Custom Questions in Carta Closings

What’s new?

We understand the questions fund managers need answered by their LPs can vary depending on the entity. With Custom Questions, a new feature of Carta Closings, fund managers and fund attorneys now have the ability to customize their LPs subscription experience, ensuring no question goes unanswered.

If Carta’s standard Investor Questionnaire doesn’t cover everything you or your attorney needs answered by LPs while closing your fund or SPV, Custom Questions gives you the ability to easily add additional questions to our questionnaire.

How does it work?

1. On the Closings tab, select Closings Documents, then click Edit Appendix.

2. You’ll be directed to a Get Started screen with two options:

Option 1: Enter questions from scratch

If you have not previously added questions to another entity, you’ll start here. For each question added, you can designate whether the question be answered by all LPs, just individuals, or just entities.

Option 2: Copy Questions from another fund / SPV

If you have previously added questions to another entity, there’s no need to enter these questions again. Click Start copying and select which questions you’d like to copy to your current fund or SPV.

3. Enter your question and then select how the answer should be provided by your LP (short text input, yes or no, etc.)  There’s no limit to how many questions you can add, or what you want to ask of your LPs.

4. Once your questions are entered you can  preview how they will appear in Carta’s investor questionnaire. After a final review, click Submit.

How do I learn more?

To learn more about this feature, please reach out to your account manager.

Spencer Holton

3 years ago10/12/2022

Issuer Transaction Dashboard (Capital Markets)

What's new?

Issuers running a secondary transaction, such as a tender offer, through Carta Liquidity on the CartaX ATS can now access on demand real-time seller participation data during a live transaction via the Issuer Transaction Dashboard (“Dashboard”).

How does it work?

Issuers can access their brokerage account online and click on their live transaction, where they will see their Dashboard. The “Participation overview” tab includes three key sections:

The table and charts on this page will update in real-time during the live transaction.

The “Transaction overview” tab of the Dashboard will be accessible at the close of the offering period and provides a summary of the transaction, including a breakdown of deposits made into the Issuer’s brokerage account. Issuers will be able to access and download their Trade Confirmation and Transaction Summary reports here as well.

Save time and gain real-time transaction and participation data on demand with the Issuer Transaction Dashboard

The Issuer Transaction Dashboard will:

Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Ashley Haber

3 years ago10/11/2022

Introducing the ability to adjust vesting end dates

What's new?

You can now adjust the time-based vesting end dates in custom vesting plan templates.

What's important or valuable about this change?

When creating a new custom vesting plan template, you have the flexibility to customize whether vesting occurs on the same day of the month as the start date (no adjustment), on the first day of the month, or on the last day of the month.

With this new capability, you can customize time-based vesting schedules to set up more vesting clauses and align vesting dates so interests vest on the same day.

What do I need to do?

When creating a new custom vesting plan template, you can find the end date adjustment option in the Time-based vesting section. You can choose between no adjustment, last day of month, or first day of month.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on managing vesting templates, please visit our support site.

Des Duggan

3 years ago10/11/2022

New search bar in the Document Library

What's new?

You can now search for documents in the Document Library.

What's important or valuable about this change?

The new search bar allows you to quickly search the library for documents you’ve uploaded, such as acceptance agreements and K-1s. This is especially useful if you have a large volume of documents saved in the library.

What do I need to do?

The search bar has been automatically added to your Document Library:

You can also search for documents when adding them to an interest or interest type:

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on document management, please visit our support site.

Des Duggan