Carta and NewView partner, hoping to entice more startups to let employees sell shares early

If you are a startup employee with stock options, you may see more opportunities to sell some of those shares before your company goes public.

Carta and NewView have announced a partnership aimed at simplifying and encouraging tender offers for startup employees. Tender offers allow employees and early investors to sell a portion of their shares to approved investors at a set price, providing early liquidity. This collaboration merges NewView's expertise in structuring secondary deals with Carta's comprehensive equity management platform. The goal is to make it easier for startup CEOs to initiate and manage these liquidity programs. A recent study by NewView Capital and Carta projects a threefold increase in tender offers for Series C and later-stage startups over the next three years. While more companies, including those not in the top-tier valuations, are considering these options, the overall execution rate remains low, with only 44 tender offers completed in the first half of 2026. This initiative seeks to address the challenge of talent retention as startups remain private for extended periods.

The partnership between Carta and NewView signals a growing trend of private companies proactively addressing employee retention and motivation through secondary liquidity events. As startups stay private longer, offering tender rounds becomes a critical tool to bridge the gap between early-stage compensation and eventual exit liquidity. This move by Carta, a dominant player in equity management, alongside NewView's secondary market expertise, standardizes and potentially lowers the barrier for these transactions, making them more accessible to a wider range of startups beyond just the highest-valued unicorns.

This collaboration could accelerate the adoption of tender offers, making them a more common feature of startup compensation packages and a key differentiator in the competition for talent. For employees, this means a greater chance of realizing value from their stock options before an IPO or acquisition, alleviating concerns about prolonged illiquidity. Investors in these secondary rounds gain early access to potentially high-growth companies, while founders can leverage liquidity programs to boost morale and reduce talent drain to public market competitors.