What’s new

Companies using Carta for 409A will now be additionally assessed for qualified small business eligibility at no extra cost to the company.

Certificates issued by a qualified small business as determined by Carta will have a "QSBS" tag in the product to indicate that the shares represent Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS). The goal of these tags is help stakeholders make more informed selling decisions.

The IRC’s definition of a qualified small business is restrictive yet vague and open for interpretation at the edges, so potential holders of QSBS should consult their tax advisor before making decisions to sell and claiming the QSBS tax benefit.

How it works

Based on company-provided information during the valuations process, Carta will assess the following criteria for qualified small business eligibility:

• Company's gross assets are $50M USD or less
• Company is an active business
• Company is a C-corp
• Company does not operate in excluded industries

If a company is identified as a qualified small business, a new badge will appear in the 409A dashboard:

If a stakeholder receives a certificate from a qualified small business but hasn't yet met the 5 year holding period for QSBS, they'll see a "QSBS eligible" tag in their portfolio:

Drilling into the security, the stakeholder will see some additional information about the QSBS status of the certificate:

Stakeholders who have held shares issued by a qualified small business for 5 years will see a "QSBS" tag in their portfolio instead:

Additional Resources

For detailed information about QSBS in Carta, please refer to our QSBS support article.

Who this affects

Companies using Carta for 409A and their stakeholders.

Timing

• Available now to 50 randomly selected 409A customers
• General availability for all 409A customers coming in two weeks

Users with holdings in public companies will now have the ability to view their holdings for both public and private companies straight from the Carta iOS app. Shareholders can now track market values, view total holdings value and more.

Who this affects

Shareholders with holdings in public companies.

Supported platforms

• iOS (Android coming soon)

What's new

With an aim to provide functional and streamlined experiences for shareholders, we’ve brought the ability to view public holdings on the Carta iOS app. Public company cards will now be present among private companies on the home screen. The following information will be displayed for each public company card with the ability to view further details when clicked:

• Total number of shares held
• Total holdings value
• Net holdings value

Non-individual Limited Partners who complete subscription documents on Carta can now be KYC’ed instantly.

What’s New

This release is a follow-up to our KYC for Individual LPs feature. If your fund leverages Carta’s KYC/AML service and you have non-individual Limited Partners (LPs) completing subscription documents in Carta, these LPs can now be instantly KYC’ed on the platform. Carta instantly KYCs the LP's control person and beneficial owner(s) in addition to the LP entity itself.

Carta’s instant KYC feature is made possible by Carta integrations with identity and verification databases like LexisNexis, Ekata, Socure, and more.

Limitations

• For this release, only US-based LPs are supported for instant KYC. Future releases will extend support to non-US LPs

How it Works

1. As an LP completes their subscription documents, non-individual LPs (for funds that avail of Carta’s KYC/AML service) will see a dedicated Know Your Customer section. Upon landing here, LPs will first be asked if their control person and beneficial owner(s) are all US persons - 

   
   

   
   
   
   

   
   

2. If the control person and beneficial owner(s) are all US persons, then the LP will be shown forms to enter KYC information for these individual(s) -
   
   

   
   
   
   
   

   
   

   
   
   

   
   

3. Finally, the LP is also able to upload any entity formation documents and photo IDs here:
   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Once subscription documents are signed by the LP, the following are instantly KYC'ed: the LP entity, control person, and beneficial owner(s). If all pass KYC, this is immediately reflected in the Carta UI and General Partners are notified to countersign -
   
   

   
   
   

   Timing: Rolled out to all on Aug 31, 2021

   Audience: US-based Limited Partners, General Partners
   
   
   

Carta is making it easier to get the answers our users need, when they need them. Introducing our one-click Help Center.

Who does this affect?

Company administrators and viewers, law firm users, and personal portfolio holders

What’s new?

Users can now access Carta's Help Center in one click by going to the dialog balloon icon at bottom right of the screen, where they can ask questions about the platform's workflows, products and features.  

Email Cases created through this workflow leverage user's session data and context to quickly route the Case to Subject Matter Experts, leading to faster resolution times. 

When Phone is selected as the preferred method, the most appropriate phone number is displayed based on the user's type and question, ensuring users get connected to the right Support Agent for their need, without inconvenient call transfers. 

Learn more about Carta's Help Center

Users with holdings in private companies can now view their holdings details straight from the home screen for easy access.

Who this affects

Shareholders with holdings in private companies.

Supported Platforms

• iOS & Android

What’s New

With an objective to provide insightful experiences, we’ve redesigned the home screen on the Carta app to display important holding details for each company. Company cards will now present the following information with the ability to view further details when clicked:

• Total number of options held, number of options vested and exercised 
• A vesting progress bar comparing the number of vested and exercised options to the total options granted
• Summary of securities displaying types and quantities for each held

Check out the exciting new updates we’ve made to Bands, Scorecard and Admin pages 

Next Twelve Months (NTM) Equity Ratio

Equity Ratio is now being calculated using Next Twelve Months (NTM) equity rather than Total Equity granted to the employee. The new formula for Equity Ratio is as follows: 

An employee’s next twelve months (NTM) equity divided by the target annual equity for a new hire today.

Why did we make this change? 

The Carta Total Comp Scorecard is designed to provide a clear view of the compensation health of your business. In order to build a score that better highlights attrition risk, we’ve changed the calculation for equity ratio to be based on unvested equity that will vest in the next twelve months. 

Employees compensated below market rate are at risk of attrition, as they would be paid more in a new role than if they were to stay in their current position. 

Vested equity does not incentivize employees, because it is already earned, and therefore does not help drive retention; put another way, vested equity is already “in the bank.” Calculating a health score that includes vested equity could lead to overlooking employees who are mostly vested and therefore at risk of going to work elsewhere. 

The additional benefit of NTM is that it allows you to compare equity compensation on the same annualized timeframe as salary. 

Additional Details

While Equity Ratio will be calculated by using NTM going forward, we will continue to show Total Equity on the company and employee Scorecard. 

Scorecard Export

You can now easily download a CSV of the entire scorecard by clicking on the “Export” button. The CSV will contain all of the available columns, regardless of whether they are enabled in the column selector.    

Admin Page

Review and modify employee details from the new Admin Settings page. This page has a complete view of all employees synced from the HRIS and cap table. 

What’s changing?

Navigate to the Admins page from the Carta Total Comp top navigation bar. From there you can access the “Roles and permissions” tab along with the “Employees” tab

New Bands Version

You can now see the date of the most recent Benchmark version in the Plan and Bands page. With the Preview plan feature, you can review the impact that updated benchmarking data has on the Scorecard prior to applying the new Plan. 

Why did we make this change? 

When benchmarking data is current, it better enables you to be competitive in today's market with the offers you take to candidates and employees. 

Job Area Descriptions and Example Job Titles

Our Roles and Levels are now defined in-app. 

Why is this important?

Carta's leveling framework provides a foundation for your company to provide career pathing for employees and to review pay fairness for each job area and level. Without consistent leveling, companies can not accurately compare their employees to market rate data, limiting their ability to effectively hire and retain talent. 

To help our customers ensure accurate and consistent leveling, we are now providing further descriptions for each job area we support, so users can make more informed leveling decisions based on commonly used job titles.

What’s changing?

We have added a “Learn more” link in the "Example title" column in the "Bands" tab. This link will launch a modal where you can see sample job titles and descriptions for roles in each job area. 

General partners now have the ability to view and track capital calls from the Carta iOS app. Investment firms can now track the progress of on-going and completed calls along with investor details, on the go, straight from the Carta app.

Who this affects

• Fund administration clients

Supported platforms

• iOS (Android coming soon)

What's new

Fund Administration clients can now access their capital call details and investor information from the Carta app.

• The home screen now provides a summary of active capital calls with the ability to view individual call details.
• Navigating to a capital call allows you to view further call and investor details along with a full investor list which can be filtered by Paid and Unpaid calls.
• The Fund Details page now also provides a capital summary and the ability to view a list of Active, Drafted, and Completed calls.

Limited Partners completing subscription documents on Carta can now be KYC’ed instantly.

What’s New

If your fund leverages Carta’s KYC/AML service and you have Limited Partners (LPs) completing subscription documents in Carta, these LPs are now instantly KYC’ed on the platform. 

Carta’s new instant KYC feature is made possible by Carta integrations with identity and verification databases like LexisNexis, Ekata, Socure, and more.

Limitations

• For this first release, only individual (as opposed to entity) LPs are KYC’ed. Future releases will support KYC for entity (non-individual) LPs as well. This includes KYC for the LP entity, LP control person, and LP beneficial owners
• For this first release, only US-based LPs are supported. Future releases will extend support to non-US LPs

How it Works

1. As an LP completes their subscription documents, individual LPs (for funds that avail of Carta’s KYC/AML service), will now see a dedicated Know Your Customer section. Here, LPs can input the additionally required information for KYC -

   
   
   

2. Once subscription documents are signed by the LP, the LP is instantly KYC’ed. If the LP passes KYC, this is immediately reflected in Carta and General Partners are notified to countersign -
   

   
   
   

   Timing: Rolled out to Limited Partners on July 1, 2021

   
   

   Audience: Limited Partners, General Partners

With the new Plans page, you can now craft and manage your compensation plan to meet the needs of a changing workforce. With Plans you can:

1. Review your active plan or create a new plan.
2. Edit and preview draft plans.
3. View your plan history.

Before making modifications to your plan, preview will allow you to see how a change in peer group, band ranges, or location strategy could impact your employees' compensation targets. 

Availability

• If you are interested in learning more about Carta Total Comp, please reach out to your Carta Customer Success Manager or sign up here.
• You must be a Carta cap table customer to sign up for Carta Total Comp.

Streamline your compensation processes and compensate with confidence on Carta Total Comp. 

Whats new?

Easily build, manage and apply your compensation strategy across your entire employee base taking both geography and custom compensation bands into account. 

To adjust your Plan settings, click on the Details link on the top left of the Scorecard page.

Geo Adjustment

You can now choose either Local or Uniform to choose the right approach for your fully remote, hybrid or in-office working arrangement.

• Local: When selected, all employees will have their target compensation automatically adjusted to the local cost of labor for their location. You can also set a minimum threshold to ensure that employees' target compensation are not set lower relative to the top metro market rate for their roles. We recommend setting the threshold to 80%.
• Uniform: Using this option, all employees' target compensation will be adjusted to the market rate for a single location.

Compensation Bands

The compensation bands settings enables you to customize the width of your company's target bands for each track. Defaults are 15% for Individual Contributors (IC), 20% for Managers, and 25% for Executives.

Availability

• If you are interested in learning more about Carta Total Comp, please reach out to your Carta Customer Success Manager or sign up here.
• You must be a Carta cap table customer to sign up for Carta Total Comp.