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

Flexible Offer Letters are now available to all Carta Total Compensation customers. 

Who this affects

All Carta Total Compensation customers.

Let candidates choose a compensation breakdown that’s best for them.

Flexible Offer Letters adds optionality to our Better Offer Letter. Now, you can:

• Offer up to three different compensation packages to a candidate, setting each with different amounts of  cash, equity, and variable compensation
• Empower candidates to visualize their future at your company, with first year comparisons and projected compensation charts 
• Do it all in an integrated, complete platform with CTC’s acceptance flow and Carta’s complete platform 

How it works

Start using Flexible Offer Letters today. 

Offer Letter Creation Form

When creating an offer letter, you can add up to three  packages in the Compensation section.

Candidate Experience

The candidate will be able to select which package is represented in the First year compensation summary.

The candidate will be able to compare each package against each other in the Compensation Projection chart, too.

For companies using Carta’s acceptance flow, candidates will be prompted to confirm which compensation package they would like to accept in a modal prior to agreeing to the offer.

Companies that are not using Carta’s acceptance flow in the offer letter can correspond with candidates offline to determine the offer letter package the candidate would like to accept.

Have additional questions?

Check out our Support Center or reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

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?

Benchmarks version 2022-11-10

What changes can I expect from these benchmarks?

We have updated salary benchmarks for all job areas and specializations. We have also updated total cash compensation benchmarks for sales roles. Salary benchmark changes in this release reflect a slowing market for talent among startups. Most job areas saw little no change versus our last release, with increases/decreases of less than 1%. We saw most of the volatility in this release within engineering specializations, which have smaller sample sizes than the broader job area. Most notably, Mobile, QA, and Web Engineering all saw large increases across peer groups and levels, bringing pay for the various engineering specializations into closer alignment.

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

IT, Sales, and Administration roles saw the largest increases ranging from 2%-5%, though the increases to IT and Administration roles are largely due to sample size changes. Support roles saw the largest decrease (4%). All other job areas changed by less than 1%.

Increases:

• IT
• Sales
• Administration

Decreases:

• Support

How do I update my plan to use the new benchmarks version?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

1. Navigating to the Bands page and clicking on the "Update" bubble in the top left.
   
   

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.

What’s next?

Carta Total Compensation is working on updates and improvements to our equity benchmarks in order to reflect the current labor market.

What's new?

You can now keep a record of interest holder addresses.

What's important or valuable about this change?

Gain a single source of truth with all interest holder information centralized in Carta. Admins can now input a physical address when adding a new interest holder or editing an existing one and this address can be viewed in the interest holder ledger and in the interest details.

What do I need to do?

When issuing interests to new holders, Admins can now bulk upload addresses in the interest holder spreadsheet. You will see different columns for different address fields. Upon issuing, the address will be saved on the new interest holder.

When adding a new interest holder or editing an existing one, Admins can record the address in the new Address section. Inputting the Country/Region will make the other address fields appear.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information on managing interest holders, visit our support site.

What's new?

We’ve simplified Carta’s UI to help Admins exercise multiple options or warrants in one streamlined workflow.

What's important or valuable about this change?

When interest holders elect to exercise their outstanding options and warrants, you can now enter the exercises all together in Carta to reflect the transactions on the cap table. You can also issue new interests to the holders and keep a record of the transaction in the interest history.

What do I need to do?

In the interests ledger, navigate to the interests you want to exercise in the left sidebar. 

Select one, multiple or all interests.

Navigate to the Action button and select Exercise.

The new UI will walk you through exercising the interests, including:

• Reviewing the destination interest type that this interest will settle into once it is exercised
• Specifying the details of the interest being exercised, including the number of units to exercise and the price per unit
• Specifying the new interest details, including the invested capital amount, issue price, and any applicable custom fields
• Reviewing everything and confirming the exercise

After you confirm, the interests resulting from the exercise will be issued, affected interests will be updated, and cap table reports will reflect the exercises. You can also view the transaction in the interest history.

How do I learn more or get help?

For more information, visit our support site.

What's new?

Sellers participating in a private market secondary transaction, such as a tender offer, on the CartaX ATS can now view their estimated tax withholdings* during the Order Entry phase. Equipped with estimated tax information, sellers who are US-based employees will be able to make a more informed decision when determining sell preferences and better anticipate their net proceeds.

How does it work?

Issuers sponsoring a tender offer or another structured transaction will provide Carta with their employees’ city, state, and/or federal jurisdictional tax rates. Carta will use the applicable tax rates to calculate their individual estimated tax withholding. 

As sellers select which of their eligible stock holdings to sell during the Order Entry period, the Proceeds Calculator on the right hand side of the screen will automatically update and calculate what their estimated net proceeds may be after fees and taxes*. 

Sellers can then click on “View tax details” (hyperlink within the red box above) to view a breakdown of the estimated tax withholdings by security type and tax jurisdiction.

Enable your employees to understand their estimated tax obligations earlier in a tender offer when placing their sell orders.

The Tax Withholding Estimates during Order Entry will: 

• Enable sellers to see how their security elections during the Order Entry period may impact their estimated tax withholdings, and ultimately, expected net proceeds; and
• Save Issuers time by helping to reduce the amount of questions received from sellers about their potential tax withholding obligations. 

 Reach out to Carta to get the process started

Do you want to run a tender offer or other private secondary transaction with a fully-integrated cap table experience? Reach out to Carta Liquidity’s Corporate Coverage team at company_coverage@cartacapitalmarkets.com to figure out the best path towards liquidity. 

*Note - The estimated tax withholdings is for illustrative purposes only. The withholding amount shown is only an estimate. The actual amount withheld from a seller’s proceeds may differ significantly from the amount shown. Tax withholding is not a final calculation of taxes due. A seller may have a greater or lesser tax obligation than the amount withheld by the Issuer, and the seller is responsible for determining whether and when any additional tax payments are required. 

Disclaimer: Carta, through its wholly owned broker-dealer subsidiary, Carta Capital Markets, LLC, offers a streamlined experience for executing pre-negotiated stock transfers, tender offers, and other secondary liquidity transactions. Carta Capital Markets, LLC is a member of FINRA/SIPC.

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 category 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 category. 

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. 

What's new?

Public company administrators can now utilize the brand new Communication Center to send secure communications to stakeholders in the company’s equity plan managed on Carta. This feature allows public companies to create and send timely communications to equity plan members in bulk. Recipients can be selected by relationship type and other filters to further customize the message’s distribution list. In addition, the Communication Center dashboard allows company administrators to view sent and drafted messages, and see which stakeholders have viewed a communication. 

Examples of communications include, but are not limited to: instructions on how stakeholders can manage their equity at Carta, employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) offerings, upcoming trading windows, and updated disclosures.

How does this work?

Permissioned company administrators may access the Communication Center. Before sending any messages, company administrators should check that the company’s Stakeholder Ledger is up-to-date to ensure messages are sent to the correct individuals. At minimum, an individual’s Relationship, Contact Email, and Officer Code (if applicable) should be updated.

Once these steps are completed, company administrators can proceed to the Communication Center dashboard (found under the Employee tab of the main navigation toolbar).

Here, company administrators with Company Editor or Legal Administrator roles can compose, review, and send secure messages with or without PDF attachments. They can also filter for previously sent and drafted messages. 

When choosing who to send a communication to, the Company Editor or Legal Administrator may send bulk messages by Relationship Type (e.g., Employee, Ex-Employee, Advisor), and then also filter recipient lists by Officer Code, Trading Restrictions, the employee stock purchasing plan (ESPP) an individual is a member of and associated status, or the outstanding security type(s) held by each stakeholder. 

Company administrators will have the opportunity to review the communication, save it as a draft, remove individuals as needed, and reconfirm the recipients before sending the message. 

After sending the message, stakeholders will receive an email notification that they received the secure message. They must log in to their Carta accounts to view the message, and messages on the Carta platform may not be forwarded to an external email account. 

Company administrators who can view the Communication Center dashboard can monitor which stakeholders have viewed the communication.  

Send secure messages and archive them safely in a centralized location with Carta’s Communication Center. 

The Communication Center allows public company administrators to: 

• Craft and send secure communications with or without PDF attachments in bulk to stakeholders within their public equity plans; 
• Easily create recipient lists by relationship type and other optional filters, removing the need to maintain multiple distribution lists manually;
• Quickly filter recipient lists of sent communications by who has or has not viewed the communication; and
• Review and archive communications to remain compliant with recordkeeping and reporting laws; 

Start using the Communication Center now!

Need help with the Communication Center? Refer to this support article for detailed instructions on how to manage, view, and send out your next secure message. 

What’s new? 

Carta improved how public company administrators can manage and designate equity plan stakeholders as Rule 144 Affiliates. Designating stakeholders as Affiliates ensures that their trade orders get reviewed before execution through a separate SEC Rule 144 due diligence workflow and that those trades are properly captured for Form 144 inclusion. Company administrators can also now easily access and review a filtered list of Rule 144 Affiliates from their Company Summary page. 

The management of Rule 144 Affiliate status has been separated from the Officer Code workflow to simplify this process and to ensure trading blackout periods for stakeholders with certain Officer Code(s) will not be impacted by one’s Rule 144 Affiliate status.

How does it work?

Company administrators can update Rule 144 Affiliate status by clicking on “Manage Employees” on the Company Summary page. 

From there, administrators can click on each stakeholder’s record and view their current Rule 144 Affiliate status. Administrators can also track the Effective Date of when a stakeholder was first marked as an Affiliate without leveraging Officer Codes.

To designate an individual as a Rule 144 Affiliate, administrators can check the box within the Update Stakeholder flow:

Easily manage, review, and designate public equity plan stakeholders as Rule 144 Affiliates to ensure trading compliance via an improved workflow.

With the improved Rule 144 Affiliate workflow, company administrators can:

• Easily manage, review, and designate equity plan stakeholders as Rule 144 Affiliates;
• Be assured that Affiliate trades go through the proper reviews and are included on Form 144; and
• Set blackout trading periods for certain Officer Code(s) without an impact to a stakeholder’s Rule 144 Affiliate status.

Start using the improved Rule 144 Affiliate status workflow now!

Do you want to update Rule 144 Affiliate status for individual stakeholders or in bulk? Refer to this support article for more information.