What’s new?

Previously, our capital call request tool only allowed General Partners (GPs) to request capital from all investors in the fund regardless of their close date. Starting today, GPs can use the redesigned tool to: 

• Make pro-rata capital calls from their existing investor base
• Call capital from subsequent close investors 

Additionally, GPs will be able to view a list of all their newly closed investors, as well as any investors whose commitments have increased or decreased since the last capital call. The capital call amounts to be called from these investors will be auto-calculated by the tool for the GP to review. 

How it works

1. There are two ways you can request a capital call. You can navigate to the Firm Management Page or through the capital calls tab in the fund page. 

2. Select the type of capital call you would like to request:

   1. Pro Rata capital calls is an improved version of our capital call tool. Input a capital call dollar or percentage amount, followed by call details, and go through the final review step before initiating your capital call.
   2. Subsequent Close capital calls will list out investors who are new and those with changed commitments since the last capital call. You will have an optional text box for additional notes, capital call details, and a final review before initiating your capital call.

Who this affects

This is available for all fund administration customers who are on the Carta General Ledger.

What’s next?

We’ll be expanding the tool’s functionality to handle more complex scenarios, such as calling additional capital from both new and existing investors in the fund. We also plan to embed the PDF notices at the review step to give GPs the option to start the capital call without further approvals.

You can now set the local currency for cash compensation (salary and variable) for your employees' scorecards. This new feature paves the way for better support for international employees. Target compensation for non-USD currencies will be supported in the future.

We've enhanced the leveling framework with new and updated job areas and specializations. This improvement is an important step toward expanding the scope of the Bands feature to include benchmarks for these new job areas and specializations. 

NOTE: These updates do not impact your employee's target salary or equity, as they are simply improvements to the labeling system to more accurately reflect trends in job functions.

The following job areas and specializations have been added and updated. Job areas marked with an asterisk (*) are currently only available for leveling purposes and do not yet support bands. At this time, all specializations still do not differentiate bands/benchmarks from their top-level job area, however, we will soon be launching specialized bands starting with Engineering, IT, Marketing, and HR. You will be notified as soon as bands are available for these new areas and specializations.

Soon, Carta customers will start seeing an expanded set of Roles to help you reflect the different individuals who are handling different aspects of Cap Table management.

For now, users assigned to new roles will serve as point of contact for their areas. Over time, these individuals will see updated experiences and be guided to relevant Carta tools.

To see this experience, Navigate to "Company > Permissions and Roles > Roles"

Corporations  Equity Administrators Improvement 

What’s new?

Previously, Carta's public markets RSU settlement tool grouped all vested tranches for an RSU grant into a single settlement entry. Carta now captures the settlement of each RSU tranche separately, including shares sold or withheld to cover taxes per tranche. 

This enhancement applies to public RSU grants with multiple vested but unsettled tranches.

This change provides the following improvements:

1. Clarity on taxes: If an issuer is releasing multiple tranches at once for a single grant, taxes are now easier to review and reconcile. Each tranche’s taxes are shown distinctly in our reports.
2. Clarity on net shares: Carta’s reporting now breaks down the shares sold or withheld for taxes for each tranche. This provides additional clarity and ease of reconciliation for participants selling net RSU shares through 10b5-1 trading plans.

Changes to reports:

Tax calculations are now captured at the vesting tranche level when setting up an RSU settlement. 

• The vesting date for each tranche now has its own row in our RSU Settlement Batch tax estimates report. Administrators can override taxes for an individual vesting tranche as part of an RSU settlement.

Shares sold or withheld for taxes are now captured at the tranche level in Carta's RSU Settlement Details report. 

• Net RSU shares sold pursuant to 10b5-1 plans in Carta are easier to interpret and reconcile, since we capture gross and net shares per tranche for each RSU settlement.
• Our settlement reports have been updated to show tranche level settlement information.

Timing:

This enhancement will be released to all public Carta companies on February 2, 2022.

Users with holdings in private and public companies can now view their holdings details directly from the Portfolio screen for easy access.

Who this affects?

Shareholders with holdings in private and public companies.

What’s new?

With an objective to provide insightful experiences, we’ve redesigned the Portfolio Overview screen to surface important holding details for each company. This redesign introduces usability enhancements by eliminating extra clicks and effort required to find the information needed to view and understand equity. 

We know things like the quantity of option grants, vesting schedule, and values of securities are some of the most important metrics to have top of my mind when reviewing your portfolio. In the Portfolio Overview, each private company card will now present the following information with the ability to view further details when clicked:

• Details of your holdings in each company and their vesting schedule 
• Summary of your securities
• Current FMV if you have holdings in the company or have exercisable options 
• A vesting progress bar highlighting the number of options exercised in comparison to the amount granted 

Each public company card will now present the following information with the ability to view further details by clicking on the company name:

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

Option exercising with Public companies is now easier than ever. 

The exercising experience for public companies has been improved. The exercise request is now a coherent workflow guiding users through each step and providing key information about the exercise. With this detail, users can be more confident with their selection at each step of the exercise request. If there are issues with the exercise, clearer banners explain how Carta calculates share amounts and market prices.

Who this affects: 🇺🇸 Public US companies

What's new:

• New experience for exercise requests:

  • Added explanations of exercise transaction methods
  • Clearer confirmation of address and payout method
  • Improved order details with indicators on maximum eligible options and clear explanation of order types
  • Incorporated review of taxes withheld and reminder of potential for additional taxes owed at end of the year
  • Summarized the exercise request clearly laying out the cost and transaction details so users understand what will be needed 
• Cashless exercising reflects issuer imposed trade limits

Action required: No action required

Timing: Released to 100% of all public companies on Jan 24, 2022

What's New

LPs subscribing to Funds and SPVs using Carta's Closings Tool can now E-Sign a pre-filled W-9 while filling out subscription documents. 

Having LPs submit a tax form is an important part of the closings process for any Fund or SPV to ensure tax teams correctly prepare LP K-1s. We received feedback from LPs about the friction of printing, signing, and uploading W-9s and wanted to streamline the process.

How it Works

For Individuals

For U.S. based LPs subscribing as an Individual, we can now optionally pre-fill a W-9 for them to review and E-sign in just three clicks. The W-9 is pre-filled based on the information the LP already provided as part of their subscription. 

For Partnerships and LLCs

For LPs subscribing as a partnership or through a LLC we'll ask some additional questions to ensure we are accurately representing the LPs federal tax classification on the W9.

With the initial release of this product we will not be pre-filling W-8s or W-8BEN-Es for non-US LPs but will still allow them to upload their own form.

Who this affects

This is now available to any LPs using Carta's Closings Tool. The Closings Tool gives LPs a quick and easy way to fill out Fund and SPV subscription documents. 

What's new?

Target Market Percentiles

Carta Total Comp will now show target data for the 25th, 50th, and 75th salary and equity percentiles.

How do I change my target market percentile for my compensation bands?

You can update your target market position to use the new percentiles either by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Create plan" button in the Active Plan window. The Create Plan window contains a section called “Market position by job area” where you can specify your target salary and target equity percentiles.
   
   
2. Visiting the Bands page and clicking “Edit” under Target criteria. Once in edit mode, you can change the target market position by selecting the Percentile dropdown.

Market Position by Job Area

Carta Total Comp users will now be able to set their organization's target market positioning by element of compensation (salary + equity) and job area to make sure they're getting a view of market competitiveness that supports their overall talent strategy.

How do I update my Plan to define my market position by job area?

You can update your existing compensation philosophy by:

1. Visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Create plan" button in the Active Plan window.
   
   
2. Under "Market position by job area" you will see a table containing your default salary + equity positioning.
3. Select the "+" icon to create additional market positions by job area.
   
   
4. Each additional market position will allow you to specify the job area, target salary percentile, and target equity percentile.

How does Market Position by Job Area affect the Employee Scorecard?

The compa-ratio is a quick way to compare an employee's compensation to your plan's target rate for a given job area, level, and location. A plan that specifies a market position for a job area adjusts the target rate for all employees in said job area. These changes can be previewed by selecting the “Save and preview plan” button on the Create Plan page.

Benchmarks version 2022-01-21

• Our market estimates now include measures of the 25th and 75th percentile by job area, level and peer group. 
• We've updated the Salary bands for all job areas to reflect market changes and improvements to our benchmarking model.

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.
   
2. 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? 

We will be expanding our benchmarks to include salary and equity data for the following Engineering Specializations: DevOps, Frontend, QA, and Software Engineering.