Carta is the leading cap table and equity management platform for startups. See 2026 pricing, features, and the valuation controversy every buyer should know…
Carta's founding story starts with a straightforward but underserved problem: private company cap tables were, for decades, managed in error-prone spreadsheets, with real consequences when equity records didn't match reality during a fundraise, acquisition, or IPO. Henry Ward and Manu Kumar founded the company in 2012 as eShares to solve that problem with dedicated software, and it grew steadily through the 2010s as more startups adopted digital cap table management as a default rather than an afterthought. The company rebranded to Carta in 2017, reflecting an expansion of ambition beyond simple share tracking into a fuller equity management and, eventually, private-markets infrastructure platform.
By the early 2020s, Carta had become the category leader by a wide margin, reporting more than 50,000 companies and millions of shareholders on its platform, and had layered in adjacent products including 409A valuation services, total compensation and equity benchmarking tools, and a marketplace for secondary liquidity events like tender offers, positioning itself as core infrastructure not just for individual startups but for the venture capital ecosystem more broadly, including fund administration services for the VC firms investing in those same startups.
Carta's reputation took a serious hit in January 2024, when the CEO of a Finnish startup publicly alleged that Carta had used confidential information from his company's cap table, specifically, details about its investor base, to solicit those same investors for a secondary share sale unrelated to his company's wishes. Because Carta's core business depends on companies trusting it as the neutral, secure record-keeper of their most sensitive ownership data, the conflict-of-interest allegation struck at the heart of that trust relationship. Carta responded quickly, announcing within about 72 hours that it would exit its secondary trading marketplace business entirely, but the incident triggered broader scrutiny of the company's business model and practices.
The financial fallout was significant: Carta's valuation, which had reached 7.4 billion dollars in an August 2021 Series G round led by Silver Lake, reportedly struggled to clear even 2 billion dollars in a 2024 secondary sale process, a decline of roughly 75 percent. Public reporting also noted that Carta's core cap table business generated around 380 million dollars in revenue in 2023 while posting a 65 million dollar loss that year, adding to investor caution about the path to profitability. For buyers evaluating Carta today, this history doesn't change the product's technical capability or market dominance, but it is a reasonable and common due-diligence question, particularly for companies weighing how much sensitive ownership and investor data to entrust to a single vendor.
Carta offers a free plan called Carta Launch for companies with fewer than 25 stakeholders and less than 1 million dollars raised, covering core cap table and SAFE management. Larger or more complex companies move to paid plans priced by stakeholder count and features.
Entry-level paid plans have been reported starting around 2,800 dollars per year for smaller stakeholder counts, with growth-stage and enterprise pricing scaling into the tens of thousands of dollars annually based on custom quotes; Carta does not publish full pricing for its higher tiers.
Carta was founded in 2012 by Henry Ward and Manu Kumar under the name eShares, rebranding to Carta in 2017.
In January 2024, a startup CEO publicly accused Carta of using confidential cap table and investor information to solicit investors for a secondary share sale. Carta announced within about 72 hours that it would exit its secondary trading marketplace business in response.
Yes. Carta reached a peak valuation of 7.4 billion dollars in an August 2021 Series G round led by Silver Lake, but reports indicate its valuation fell sharply, struggling to clear roughly 2 billion dollars in a 2024 secondary sale process, a decline of about 75 percent.
Carta also offers 409A valuations, total compensation benchmarking, QSBS attestation, secondary liquidity and tender offer support, and fund administration services for venture capital firms.
While Carta is best known among venture-backed startups, its platform also serves later-stage private companies and, through its fund administration products, venture capital firms managing their own funds.
Yes, Carta is widely reported to be the market leader in cap table and equity management software, with over 50,000 companies and roughly 2.5 million shareholders on its platform as of the mid-2020s.