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Carta

Score9.5 out of 10

53 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

the company dashboard that provides a comprehensive view of tasks and recommended next steps.
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.
the equity awards management interface featuring visibility into options holders, exercise prices, vesting schedules, and remaining allocation from an equity plan.
the shareholder information and certificate interface where edits are incorporated into the cap table automatically.
Carta's interface to create, track, and receive funding.

1 / 5

Reviews

What users are saying about Carta.
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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

Carta Does It All

Incentivized
Harrison BondView profile
Research Analyst in Customer Service at Riskalyze (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Well Constructed UI - One of the most important things for any software I use is how well constructed is the UI. In Carta, the icons are clearly visible and understood intuitively. Certificates can be clicked on to display all relevant ESO information. Issue dates, share amounts, cash cost are all front and center for easy visual consumption. This has the side effect of making Carta easy to use, which is something that all web app software should try and do.
  • Ease of access - Getting started with Carta was really easy (also helped that our HR department sends you an email with ESO info if that is part of your employment contract). Once things got going, I really only needed to login to Carta once every vesting cycle to review my available shares and make a purchase.
  • No Nonsense - The concept behind no nonsense is a little more art than science. Carta tackles one thing; ESO solutions. It does not attempt to beat around the bush with other features or ideas that might be secondary or tertiary to their primary focus. Instead, they only work towards building and supporting ancillary features and interface choices.
  • Help Center - Seriously. Well. Done. Carta has an ENORMOUS database of articles and help documentation. Just about anything you could want or need help on is right there.
  • Two Factor Authentication - Just when you thought you were safe from thing sin the world, EQUIFAX gets breached. Fortunately, Carta has wisely considered the advantages of 2FA and enabled it!

Cons

  • With all of the time I've spent poking around, learning, and utilizing Carta, I can confidently say that nothing stands out as needing glaring improvement or attention. I usually have more to say when it comes to this type of feedback, but find myself sorely lacking.

Return on Investment

  • Since I do not handle financials directly, this is more difficult to speak towards with confidence. My best guess is that it has reduced a lot of the manual paperwork processes that would otherwise occupy the ESO space, which allows for folks to spend their time doing other things for the company.

Other Software Used

Slack, UberConference, JIRA Software, Google Drive, Guru

Carta with bugs

Verified User
Executive in Finance and Accounting (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Streamlines the stock certificate
  • Cost effective

Cons

  • Software has bugs
  • They do not acknowledge the bugs or fix them.
  • Poor customer service

Return on Investment

  • Cost effective way to manage stock certificates.

Alternatives Considered

Certent

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