We’ve made some improvements

Beginning in May 2023, we are launching a new navigation experience - making it easier than ever to navigate your cap table, create and issue new securities, and manage relations with your stakeholders.

We are testing this experience with a select list of companies. Companies in this test will now navigate Carta’s equity management platform from the left-hand side. We are using this test to iterate on any improvements that need to be made and hope to roll out to 100% of new and existing companies by Summer 2023.

The new menu can also be collapsed for an optimized viewing experience by clicking the menu icon to the right of the Filter text box once you’ve landed in the right spot.

Finding what you need just got easier

The new navigation will make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for and complete critical tasks, with menu categories that are more intuitive and organized according to the type of task that needs to be completed within Carta. 

Terminology that just makes sense

We have also updated some of the terminology that appears throughout the Carta platform to clarify specific tasks and workflows. The changes that we’ve made are outlined in the table below.

FAQs

Why is Carta making this change? 

Carta offers a wide range of products and services, and users sometimes get  lost as they look through menu items in an effort to find the workflow or platform page they need to access. We understand that time is money, and the less time you spend locating the resources you need frees up more time for you to spend growing and managing your company. The new left-side menu enables users to have an immediate comprehensive view of Carta’s functionality with clearer verbiage, menu filtering, and collapsible dropdowns. 

Can I revert back to the old navigation experience? 

No. Our research has shown that our new navigation menu is not only more intuitive for users, but also faster. Beginning in May 2023, Carta is fully migrating away from the top navigation menu. We plan to be rolled out to 100% of companies by July 2023.

How do I use the new navigation experience to find what I’m looking for? 

The new navigation experience includes a filter to assist you in finding what you’re looking for. The menu will responsively pare down as characters are entered in the text box.

Additionally, left-side navigation enables you to expand and collapse multiple dropdowns at the same time, allowing for a more comprehensive overview of Carta’s functionality at a glance.

Did Carta remove any features? 

No. While the new menu may look more compact than in our current experience, all of the features that you have come to rely on are included in the new navigation. The goal of this initiative is not to change the functionality of Carta’s cap table, but rather, to make that functionality easier for you to find.

What’s new?

We are releasing a report to all Private Market companies for administrators to review their certificate cost basis and original acquisition dates. This report will allow administrators to view cost basis data prior to the delivery of 1099B tax statements to stakeholders by mid-February.

How it works

This in-app report is available by navigating from Capitalization -> Reporting -> Form 1099b cost basis report.

Administrators will be able to view columns like stakeholder details, certificate ID's, quantity of shares sold, date acquired (original acquisition date), proceeds, gain/loss, and including various cost basis fields: 

• cost_basis_total_certificate = full value going back to the original certificate
• cost_basis_per_share = cost basis of total certificate / total shares quantity
• cost_basis_sold_certificate = cost basis per share X sold shares quantity

From this report, Issuers can identify which certificates need to be changed and/or excluded from tax filing, and will have the opportunity to correct the data until late-January.

Who does this impact?

This report will be available to individuals with role permissions of Company Admin, and including Company Editors.

What’s next?

In the next month, Carta's Liquidity team will be reaching out to ensure that data has been reviewed and is considered approved by Issuers for generating 1099B statements. Stakeholders will be able to access tax statements in their portfolios by mid-February.

What’s new

Companies can now adjust taxes for option exercises previously approved in Carta.

Legal administrators can navigate to the Exercises ledger (Transactions > Exercises) and select "Adjust taxes" within a ledger row dropdown to find the new tool:

How it works

The "Adjust taxes" tool will not be available for option exercises in the "Requested" status since option exercise approvers can adjust taxes as part of the exercise approval workflow.

For ACH option exercises already approved by the company or for company-entered manual exercises, the "Adjust taxes" tool will be available for use.

After a legal administrator selects "Adjust taxes" from the Exercises ledger, they'll see the following modal:

The legal administrator will be asked to provide a reason for the adjustment. Next, the following actions are available:

• Un-check a box next to a tax type to remove it from the option exercise
• Re-check a box to re-add a previously removed tax type to the option exercise
• Update the specific tax withholding amount in the "Adjusted" column
• Select "Add another tax type" to add a new tax type to the option exercise

Note that new tax types can't be added from this modal. If you'd like to add a new tax type to the exercise, add it first in the Tax rules page (Compliance > Tax rules) and then come back to the "Adjust taxes" tool to add it to the option exercise.

Once the adjustment has been saved, both the company and the stakeholder will see a blue banner when viewing the option grant. The banner contains information about the newly adjusted tax amount and exercise cost in addition to when the adjustment was entered in Carta:

Adjusted tax amounts will also be reflected in the "Exercised and settled report" and the "Tax withholding report" (Capitalization > Reporting).

For more information, check out the support article for the new "Adjust taxes" tool: https://support.carta.com/s/article/adjust-taxes-option-exercises

Who this affects

Private and public companies that issue option grants.

Timing

Available to all companies now.

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
   
   
   

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

Get the transparency you need to manage ISO/NSO splits with the new ISO 100K dashboard in Carta.

Who this affects

All Carta customers can now access the dashboard under Compliance > ISO 100K.

What's new

The 100K rule for ISOs has been a historically opaque concept in Carta - customers and their legal counsel have often found it difficult to understand how the application of the rule results in the specific bifurcation of ISO vs NSO shares in a particular option grant.

The new ISO 100K dashboard brings a new level of transparency to the way in which ISO options are bifurcated according to Carta's automatic application of the 100K rules. For specific transactions and amendments that fall outside the purview of Carta's automatic bifurcation estimates, customers and their legal counsel can request access to the dashboard's grant editor feature, which allows legal administrators to change the ISO/NSO split estimated by Carta.

Last thing to mention: we worked closely with Orrick (one of Carta's law firm partners) to make sure we were solving this problem in a way that allowed our law firm partners to better support our customers. You can read more about that here on Carta's blog.

Timing

Available now to all Carta customers.

We've listened to your feedback on watermark styling obstructing the readability of the documents and we've made a few changes to address those concerns. We'll continue to iterate on our watermarking capabilities and tools in the coming months and we are starting with the following changes.

Here's a sample document with the old watermark styling

Here's the same sample document with the new watermark styling

Specifically, we've made the following changes with this iteration:

• Reduced opacity of the watermark text
• Updated alignment between the rows
• Fewer repetition
  
  

Who these changes affect?
All Carta users who choose to apply watermark on their documents. These changes will be rolling out to all users today.

What's coming: Carta will automatically check for the ISO 100k limit in additional workflows and features across the app

Who this affects: Companies issuing ISOs

What's better: 

Based on some inputs (FMV, number of options granted, etc.), Carta automatically detects whether or not any grants for a given stakeholder are in violation of the ISO 100k limit. If any ISO grants are in violation of this rule, Carta will automatically change the award type from ISO to ISO/NSO:

Carta already runs this automated check any time a new award is issued. We've added this automated check in a few more places, so companies will no longer need to work with Carta staff to manually run the check when making common types of award modifications.

Timing: Live for all customers on September 15th

Over the last few months, we’ve been listening to your feedback on our changelog and identified usability and customization as two areas for improvement. Today, we are announcing our new and improved Release Notes in order to provide you with up-to-date information and news on Carta product changes. 

Key features of our Release Notes include:

Filter by label

You can now filter out notes to only include the ones you care about most. You will be able to filter by Carta product area (Corporations, Investor Services, Platform, and CartaX), customer type (Employee, Equity Administrator, Board Member, etc. ), or release stage (General Audience, Preview, etc.)

You can filter by label on the right hand side of the screen by selecting the label you’d like to see notes on.

Subscribe for recurring product updates

Curious to know about all the great things we’re releasing on a regular basis? Subscribe to our Release Notes. You will get an email to your inbox whenever we post a new update. You can find the subscribe button at the top of the Release Notes page.