What's new?

We’ve revamped the Activity tab of the GP Portal so fund managers have greater visibility into their relationship with Carta.

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. They’ll receive a notification if any action item is blocking the task from being completed.

GPs can also use the Activity tab to stay up to date on tasks assigned to them by their fund admin, like reviewing financials or management fees. 

What do I need to do?

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

From here, you can view and complete tasks assigned to you by your fund admin. Click Details to view additional information about the task like the date it was created, the progress, and the status. This is also where you’ll be able to complete the task.

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 past tasks completed by you and your fund admins.

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. 

What's new?

Carta now helps private company administrators coordinate the settlement of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). The end-to-end offering allows an Issuer to:

• configure and schedule a RSU Settlement;
• provide RSU holders with an election period to identify how they want to pay the tax withholding obligation associated with the upcoming settlement;
• collect any cash payments from RSU holders; and
• automatically update the cap table at settlement.

During the election period, RSU holders are invited to access a workflow to view their vested RSUs along with the tax withholding amounts due at settlement. They have the flexibility to meet their tax obligation by electing to net-settle, pay the full amount in cash, or use a combination of surrendered shares and cash. 

This offering helps facilitate the RSU settlement process from setup to share delivery for private Issuers that award RSUs under their equity compensation plans.

How does it work?

Issuers

Private company administrators can go through a four-step process to configure an upcoming RSU Settlement with Carta Liquidity. Issuers can:

• set the parameters of the settlement (e.g., FMV, election timing, settlement date); 
• view and confirm the RSUs that will be included based on the vesting end date (i.e., record date); and 
• view and confirm tax withholding amounts associated with the settlement. 

Issuers can set rates to use when calculating tax withholdings owed based on each RSU holder’s tax jurisdiction(s). Carta Liquidity’s integration with Carta’s equity management platform and tax engine eliminates the need for the administrator to pull and sort cap table information manually or calculate tax withholdings for each RSU holder. Alternatively, Issuer’s can provide tax withholding amounts calculated by their HRIS provider for use in the settlement.

RSU holders

When the administrators invite RSU holders to submit their elections, RSU holders will be able to view which of their RSUs will be settled and the tax withholding amount due per security. In addition, individuals will identify how they would like to satisfy the tax withholding amount owed through a self-service election workflow. 

The three tax withholding payment options include:  

• Share withholding (i.e., net settlement) - The entire tax withholding amount is paid by surrendering a portion of shares from the vested RSUs released for settlement. The net amount of shares after withholding will be delivered to a RSU holder at settlement. This is the default option.
• Cash payment - The entire tax withholding amount is paid by a RSU holder in cash (only USD is accepted). RSU holders are required to fund their brokerage account in order to make this election.
• Share and cash payment - Each RSU holder identifies the mix of cash and shares that will be used to pay the taxes due at settlement, providing them more flexibility. RSU holders are required to fund their brokerage account in order to make this election.

For any cash elections, RSU holders are instructed to transfer the necessary cash to their Carta Liquidity brokerage account*. RSU holders are able to modify their election until the end of the election period. 

At settlement, Carta Liquidity’s integration with Carta’s equity management platform automatically updates an Issuer’s cap table to reflect the shares of stock delivered to RSU holders, and any cash payments received to cover applicable tax obligations will be transferred automatically to the Issuer’s brokerage account. RSU holders will then receive their resulting equity from the Issuer in their Carta accounts. In addition, Carta Liquidity will provide a record of the RSU settlement to both the Issuer and RSU holders. 

Run regular RSU settlement processes with automatic cap table updates and tax withholding calculations, saving your team time and resources 

The RSU Settlement offering will:

• Reduce the manual administrative work required to set up a regular cadence of RSU settlement through equity management and tax engine integrations
• Provide RSU holders flexibility to choose how they would like to meet their tax withholding obligations through a self-service election workflow
• Provide optionality to RSU holders to pay out of pocket for the amount they feel comfortable paying.

Start managing RSU Settlements on Carta!

Reach out to company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to speak with your relationship manager to turn on this feature. 

*Note: Brokerage accounts and other brokerage services are offered through Carta Capital Markets, LLC (Member: FINRA/SIPC)

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

• 12/21/2022 - Released to 25% of users, with general availability by the end of January

How do I learn more or get help?

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

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. 

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.

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:

• Formation Documents / General Docs

  • LPA
  • EIN Confirmation
  • Formation Certificate

• Partners’ Equity

  • Subdocs
  • W8/W9
  • Investor Side Letters
  • Transfers docs

• Executed Investment Documents (Deal Docs Team)

  • Certificate of Formation / Incorporation 
  • Stock Purchase or Closing Volume, Convertible Promissory Note, Sub Doc
  • Most recent cap table
• Bank Statements
• Invoices missing from Journal Entries
• Management fee and interest calculations

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. 

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.

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:

• User and exercise specific details such as grant, company, option holder, date, and amount.
• Clearer instructions for the bank on how to handle intermediary fees with specific SWIFT payment instructions. 
• Approval and reminder emails now show the last day for Carta to receive funds, so the exercise can be complete.

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

• Available on all online wire exercises starting 11/30/2022

Additional Resources

Support Article: Exercising Via Online Wire

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:

• Combines capital calls and distributions under one tab for your fund admin team 
• Handles complex net events where LPs are being called and distributed value at the same time
• Allows for distributions to use the same in-app GP approval flow that cap calls use
• Allows for distributions to use the same pro rata math to auto-populate figures that cap calls have
• Adds itemization support (bucketing) so journals and cap call notices can detail how much of a cap call is for expenses, fees, and more
• Calls outside commitment are now supported 
• Cap calls can use dynamic fields for notice building (previously distributions only)
• The support section is now customizable on notices
• Progress (LPs paid) figures are now accurate 
• Tracks partial amounts from LPs

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. 

• Capital Calls
• Subsequent Close Call
• Distribution
• Custom Event 

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. 

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 KPI 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 KPI. 

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 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.