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Carta

Score9.1 out of 10

65 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Carta?

Carta is an equity management platform that helps private companies manage their cap tables and issue securities electronically. Carta's tools help companies with valuations, tax filings, and equity compliance. Most recently, Carta launched Total Comp—a compensation management suite that offers benchmarking, leveling, scorecards, total rewards statements, and other tools used to forecast, hire, and retain talent.

The vendor states that Carta currently supports more than 40,000 companies and 2.3M+ equity holders. They have valued over $2.5T in private assets.

For early-stage founders, the company offers Carta Launch, a free fundraising and equity management tool for early-stage founders who have raised <$1mm.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of the company dashboard that provides a comprehensive view of tasks and recommended next steps.
Screenshot of a company's detailed cap table breakdown by share class, providing vital insights into authorized shares, ownership percentages, dilution effects, and funds raised, accessible at a glance.
Screenshot of the equity awards management interface featuring visibility into options holders, exercise prices, vesting schedules, and remaining allocation from an equity plan.
Screenshot of the shareholder information and certificate interface where edits are incorporated into the cap table automatically.
Screenshot of Carta's interface to create, track, and receive funding.

1 / 5

Screenshot of the company dashboard that provides a comprehensive view of tasks and recommended next steps.

Who Buys & Uses Carta

Carta Reviews

What users are saying about Carta.
View all Carta reviews

Carta Review

Incentivized
Verified User
Account Manager in Customer Service (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it as go to platform for stock option management. Without it I am not sure how we would achieve that. I believe this product actually brings a lot of value to any startup.

Pros

  • Clear display of ownership / stock options
  • Education on the topic of ownership
  • Displaying future dates of when stock options mature

Cons

  • Technical side of education could be explained more simply
  • International support for taxes and other events linked to stock options

Return on Investment

  • Clear insight into ownership
  • Clear insight into future stock option grants and unlocks

Usability

Other Software Used

Fin by Intercom, ChatGPT, Amplitude Analytics

Great tool for managing equity

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Carta to manage the equity shares that were distributed amongst our 70+ employees before acquisition from a parent company. It enabled our stakeholders to manage these shares easily and was a very nice platform from the end user side as well, very transparent and clear in regards to how to understand your equity in the company.

Pros

  • Easy of use, clean user interface
  • Robust back-end tools for reporting
  • Simple cap table management

Cons

  • More documentation at your fingertips

Return on Investment

  • Hard to provide the overall ROI but happiness with the product was universal.

Usability

Carta - Happy user at 2 companies, including my current one!

Incentivized
Walter Luceno
Director of Accounting in Finance and Accounting at Zest AI (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Streamlined and efficient UI.
  • Automatic calculation of all necessary accounting computations and footnote disclosures, properly support for external audit purposes.
  • A central source of truth for both internal (like accounting and legal) and external (outside counsel) stakeholders in the equity process.

Cons

  • Still some issues with the auto-generated Excel file for stock calculations that required correction by technical support.
  • Could offer integration into accounting platforms or HR/payroll platforms to further cut down on manual input.
  • It should allow for custom user creation to allow for varying levels of access based on role in the company; currently, all security roles in the platform are out of the box without any modification allowed.

Return on Investment

  • Carta has allowed us to focus our time away from the manual calculation of complex transactions and more toward other business objectives.
  • In addition, the manual tracking of granting, exercising, and forfeiting/expiration of stock options is done much more accurately with the use of Carta. This makes us that much more ready for another round of fundraising or exit.

Alternatives Considered

Capshare and Solium Shareworks

Carta brings us an exciting peace of mind that no other tool can~

Incentivized
Hayden AndersonView profile
Senior Enterprise Account Development II - Team Lead in Sales at Lucid (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • It is extremely easy to navigate and understand the app/tool itself.
  • The clean layout make tracking and managing our shares/benefits easy and exciting.
  • This helps upper management remain transparent and honest about what is promised and when it should be rewarded as time passes.

Cons

  • It would be great if we were able to link our 401k to the app and have all benefits in the same place.
  • I think that an occasional training or resource provision on the best ways to use our options would be helpful.
  • Mentorship and guidance upon IPO or Acquisition would be a really cool benefit to our younger employees.

Return on Investment

  • Time-savings and the weight that Carta takes off of office management are a huge win for us.
  • The transparency and availability of the information Carta stores/presents is another big ROI for us.
  • The ease-of-use here makes the need for training minimal, therefore saving both time and money.

Alternatives Considered

ADP GlobalView HCM and BambooHR

Other Software Used

Lucidchart, BambooHR, LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Carta - I Can't Believe I Used to Do Stock Admin Without It!

Verified User
C-Level Executive in Finance and Accounting (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Carta is used for managing our capitalization table. This includes the issuance of stock options and the maintaining of stock ledgers for each class of stock. Carta also has a service for conducting and preparing our 409 ( a ) valuation each year. Additionally, our investors are able to request data from us through Carta, which provides an easy way to correspond on sensitive data.

Pros

  • Stock option maintenance
  • Cap table maintenance
  • 409 ( a )
  • Scenario modelling

Cons

  • Online help
  • Support documentation
  • Highlighting errors

Most Important Features

  • Stockholder maintenance
  • Stockholder communication
  • Stock Option administration

Return on Investment

  • If a company's cap table is wrong that is legally considered fraud ( yes, a capital F fraud ), as in there could be criminal repercussions, and almost assuredly whatever transaction that requires it to be accurate will be canceled.
  • Compliance is a major factor when it comes to having a stock option plan. Carta is the best I've seen at keeping a company in compliance.

Other Software Used

Jirav, SaaSOptics, 15Five

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