Issuing equity has often felt complex, especially for founders and company admins handling just a few grants at a time. That’s why we’ve improved Carta's  workflow that helps issuing options quickly, confidently, and without needing vast equity expertise.

With this new workflow, you can:

• Follow a step-by-step flow designed for issuing up to five option grants (the most common equity event at early-stage startups).
  
  
• Avoid mistakes with built-in safeguards like template vesting schedules, legends, and warnings for edge cases.
  
  
• Feel confident knowing Carta still maintains compliance and data integrity behind the scenes.
  
  
• Sit back as we pre-fill the draft set with all information we have on the company and stakeholder

How do I use it?

In order to access it, navigate to Essentials → Issue equity → Options → New options draft set

Once there, click on global settings to define the behavior for the whole draft set

Information added to the global settings will apply to all grants within the same draft set

After this is done, start issuing the first grant by selecting the name of the holder. 

If Carta detects you have issued grants to that holder before, information will be filled out automatically in order to simplify the issuance. 

By clicking on the quantity field, it's possible to now see a glimpse of the current holdings for any specific holders.

Once ready, click submit to release the new grants.

If the issuance is for more than five grants, the in app spreadsheet workflow is still available.

Who is this available to?

This feature is now available to all Carta customers. 

We’re excited to make equity administration simpler and more approachable—from day one.

What's New

Company admins can now display the estimated value of the portfolio for PIU holders now.

Why is it Important

Shareholders in PE-backed companies often lack clear visibility and transparency into the current estimated value of their Portfolio holdings; with the expansion of Broad Based Ownership Program, more PE-backed port cos want to provide equity transparency for their employees.

How does it Work

We have deployed the Estimated Value feature, an opt-in tool that allows company admins to display portfolio values to shareholders. Admins maintain full control over the specific values used for portfolio calculations and the overall visibility settings. This initial iteration specifically supports Profits Interest Units (PIU) within PE-backed LLC structures.

• Admin Experience: admin will be prompted to go to this Settings page under: 1) Post Profit Interest equity issuance; 2) Manage Stakeholders actions; 3) Manage Employees actions);

• Holder Experience: holders are able to view the estimated value of the awards allocated vs vesting and view the calculation formula to understand how estimated value is calculated.

To learn more:

https://support.carta.com/kb/guide/en/how-to-navigate-your-carta-portfolio-whXWYxrCaM/Steps/3724605,5040640

Financial Reporting is improving the vesting schedule types supported and updating the UI so it's easier than ever to set it up and generate reports.

What's new?

Milestone award support (Dec 2024)

Milestones are a type of vesting schedule that can be set up at the grant level and that are vested by admins upon holders accomplishing certain achievements. Milestones can be used as a catch all alternative where a performance condition will not suffice. See this support article for information of what vesting schedule types fall under 'milestone vesting' at Carta.

Milestone awards that were granted historically will true up on the next report run in Financial Reporting. Any expense that would have been attached to these historically will be booked in the most recently run period. 

NEW: Mixed-vesting milestone support

We've added support for double-trigger milestone awards, where vesting requires both a milestone condition and a performance condition (non-market or event-based) to be met. Previously, milestone tranches with performance conditions were blocked and produced an error.

Contact 718@carta.com if you would like to discuss how to treat these awards.

Anything else I need to know?

If you have any questions or want to talk to an expert about these new changes, reach out to 718@carta.com. 

We’re excited to announce the release of Biometric KYC Verification, making it significantly easier and faster for LPs to complete their Know Your Customer (KYC) tasks on Carta. 

Why is this valuable?

Move from setup to capital deployment faster. Traditional KYC is a manual hurdle that creates friction for LPs and delays onboarding. This update replaces legacy data entry with a biometric-first workflow—eliminating administrative overhead while ensuring the highest level of data integrity and compliance.

What’s new?

• Instant identity verification: Individual LPs can now verify their identity by scanning a government ID using their desktop or mobile phone—replacing a manual process with a streamlined flow completed in just minutes. 
• Simplified data requirements: For US Investor KYC Due Diligence, we have removed redundant fields to further simplify the process for LPs
• Mobile-first flexibility: Investors can instantly transition from desktop to mobile via QR code to capture high-resolution ID photos, ensuring a higher success rate and faster approvals.

This is available for all Individual entity types across all Investor Services KYC Due Diligence products in all jurisdictions.

How do I use it?

1. Enter KYC: Start the KYC process either within the Subscription Documents or Identity Verification task.
2. Choose a method: Upload a photo of a government ID or scan the provided QR code to take a photo of the ID.
3. Submit: Complete the task in a fraction of the time compared to legacy manual forms. 

Anything else I need to know?

• Existing tasks: LPs who have already started a KYC task will continue with the current form to ensure their progress is not interrupted.
• Manual fallback: If an ID cannot be verified automatically, users will be prompted to try again or can choose to fill out the information manually to ensure no one gets stuck.

What’s new?

We have updated salary, total cash compensation, and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations across all peer groups. In addition we have included new benchmarks in this release:

• Business Operations
• Electrical Engineering
• Information Security
• Mechanical Engineering

Benchmark Trends

In aggregate, salary and total cash compensation benchmarks are slightly higher than our last release, increasing slightly less than 1%. Increases are consistent across stages of company and fairly consistent across levels. Similar to previous updates, specialization level data continues to change more than the broader sample, as sample sizes for these roles are smaller than job area level data.

Equity benchmarks are also slightly higher than last quarter. Increases were a bit more concentrated in earlier stage companies.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

Salary - Salary benchmarks for nearly all job areas and specializations are within 2% of last quarter’s data. Project management is the only role that increased by more than 2% quarter-over-quarter (by about 3%)

Equity - Equity benchmarks are generally within 2-3% of last quarter’s benchmarks.

How do I update my benchmark version?

You can also preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here 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.

Questions?

If you have any questions about these new benchmarks, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

Australian companies can now manage their entire equity compensation lifecycle - from issuing grants to generating reports directly within Carta that you may file with the ATO. This release introduces ESS stock options that replace generic "international" securities, ensuring your cap table reflects real Australian equity structures.

What’s important about this change?

Historically, Australian startups have been forced to juggle multiple platforms, manual spreadsheets, and expensive third-party filers to manage Employee Share Schemes (ESS). This manual process often led to weeks of reconciliation and compliance uncertainty.

How this makes life better:

• For Founders: You can now issue tax-advantaged options (including startup concessions and non-concessional types) using the same familiar workflows on the platform.
• For Employees: Your team receives clear, pre-filled tax statements directly from Carta, making it easier for them to understand their ownership and file their personal tax returns.
• For Accountants & Tax Advisors: Instead of hunting for data, you can be invited as an admin to access real-time, ATO-ready reports, shifting your focus from data entry to strategic advice.

How does it work?

The entire filing workflow is now consolidated into a single source of truth.

1. Issue & Track: Issue ESS options directly from the grants flow. Every transaction - grants, exercises, and vesting - automatically syncs to your cap table.
2. Generate Reports: With one click, generate ATO-format ESS Annual Reports (Excel/CSV) that include all mandatory fields and automated tax calculations for you to submit to ATO.
3. Distribute Statements: Automatically generate and send ATO format summary statements to your employees.
4. Collaborate: Invite your external accountant or tax advisor to access the data directly, reducing back-and-forth and lowering accounting fees.

How do I learn more?

For more information on how it works, check out this guide.

• Existing Customers: Our team will reach out directly via email to assist with migrating your current securities to ESS types.
• New to ESS? Check your plan - ESS statement and ATO support features are included in Grow & Scale plans.
• Need an upgrade? If you are on a Build plan, reach out to us here.

What’s new?

We have updated salary, total cash compensation, and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations across all peer groups. In addition we have included new benchmarks in this release:

• Data Engineering
• Creative Marketing
• Technical Support
• IT, levels 9 and above (including CIO)
• CEO Founder and Non-Founder, capital raised peer groups

Benchmark Trends

In aggregate, salary and total cash compensation benchmarks are slightly higher than our last release, increasing by about 1%. Increases are consistent across stages of company and fairly consistent across levels. Similar to previous updates, specialization level data continues to change more than the broader sample, as sample sizes for these roles are smaller than job area level data.

Equity benchmarks are increasing in aggregate, showing about a 2% increase versus last quarter. Later stage peer groups generally saw the largest increases

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

Salary - Salary benchmarks for all job areas and specializations are within 2% of last quarter’s data. Recruiting is the only role that decreased quarter-over-quarter (by about 1%)

Equity - Equity benchmarks are generally within 5% of last quarter’s benchmarks. Product Management is the only role that increased by more, showing a 7% increase.

How do I update my benchmark version?

You can also preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here 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.

Questions?

If you have any questions about these new benchmarks, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

We're excited to introduce Carta's Intercompany Balances view, a relationship-centric dashboard for tracking obligations across your firm.

Whether you need to track reimbursements to the management company, fund-to-fund balances, or other intercompany liabilities, you now have centralized oversight.

Why is this valuable?

Firms often struggle with reconciling due-to and due-from balances across entities like funds, their management company, SPVs, and GP entities. The Intercompany Balances view improves your firm-wide visibility and operational efficiency with a unified, entity-level view.

Within each entity in Carta, you can instantly check outstanding balances across related entities in the firm. This enables:

• Firm-level Clarity: Easily see net amounts due-to and due-from a primary entity and all related entities.
• See What Ties Out: Balances are automatically categorized as "Settled," "Ready to Settle," or "Pending Review” so you immediately know what’s actionable.
• Visibility into Available Cash: Confirm sufficient funds are available for settlement with a real-time view of entity bank balances.
• Audit the Underlying Journals: Quickly dig into entities’ trial balances for deeper review of intercompany accounts and journal details.

Coming Soon: Bulk Settlement

The Intercompany Balances view is just the first step. We are actively building the next phase, which will allow you to settle multiple balances in a single workflow.

Who is this available for?

This feature is available to all Fund Admin customers.

How do I learn more?

For more information on the Intercompany Balances view, check out this detailed walkthrough.

We’re excited to announce the release of Data Explorer, which offers Carta Fund Administration customers a centralized hub to query, analyze, and export your fund and portfolio company data.

Why is this valuable?

Insights and reporting are often siloed, manual processes that are not integrated into your existing data ecosystem, leading to data freshness, quality, and integrity issues. This release centralizes and streamlines reporting across the Carta platform and turns your data into a strategic advantage. With Data Explorer, you'll access the following benefits:

• Get full visibility: View consolidated data across every fund and SPV in one place for faster insights generation. 
• Create custom reports: Build pivots, dashboards, and visualizations tailored to your needs—no spreadsheets required.
• Benchmark performance: Instantly compare your fund metrics against peers by vintage and AUM.
• Automate data extraction: Easily connect Carta’s data pipeline to your existing systems via a Snowflake secure data share or API-based connector.

Who is this available for?

This is available for all Carta Fund Administration customers. To get started:

1. Login to your Carta account and navigate to Tools & Services > Data explorer. 
2. Access curated dashboards based on common reporting use cases.
3. Reference our data dictionary for comprehensive table and field definitions.
4. Click New > question to initiate a custom query and save it to your personal collection or add to a dashboard.

How does it work?

How do I learn more?

For more details, visit our detailed guides in the Carta Support Center.

Financial Reporting will now include Profits Interest Units (PIUs) in all expense and disclosure reports. 

Why is this important?

Expense accounting is crucial for private companies because it's the only way to accurately measure profitability, ensure tax compliance, make informed business decisions, and secure funding.

How does Profit Interest support in Financial Reporting works?

• New Disclosure Table: The Minimum Disclosures report will now include a new "PIUs outstanding table" if the company has PIUs. This table includes a dedicated "Repurchased" line for greater clarity.
• Partial Repurchases: When a PIU is partially repurchased, the system cancels the original security and issues a new "balance" security. The report will reflect this (e.g., one grant canceled, one new grant issued). A footnote in the "Tranches" tab confirms that expense is not double-counted. 
• Fair Value Override: The report defaults to the Intrinsic Value method for PIU expense. The "Override Fair Value" is still available if there's any need to change it.

Where can I learn more about this?

• How do I use the Minimum Disclosures Report?
• Profits interests outstanding table