NewView and Carta simplify startup share sales

NewView and Carta announced a partnership on October 23 to streamline the process for private startups to sell employee shares. The collaboration combines NewView's experience in secondary transactions with Carta's equity management platform. The goal is to make it easier for companies to execute tender offers before a public listing or acquisition.

Tender offers allow employees and early investors to sell a portion of their stock at a set price to an approved buyer. This practice has become more common as the time between founding and an exit has increased. NewView and Carta project that tender offers among Series C and later-stage startups have grown threefold over the past three years.

Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, stated that the partnership aims to help CEOs launch liquidity programs more smoothly. He described early liquidity as a benefit for employees, companies, and investors. "The hope is that this partnership will make it easier for CEOs and companies to think about tenders," he said.

Viswanathan pointed to Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as an example of this trend. Last year, NewView led a tender offer for the company at a $1.3 billion valuation when it was seven years old. He noted that companies using this method are no longer limited to the most valuable private firms, such as OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril.

Despite the growth, the practice is not yet widespread. Research from NewView Capital and Carta indicates that only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026. Viswanathan argued that these offers serve as retention tools and morale boosters. He noted that the recruiting pitch of reaching unicorn status has lost weight due to the high number of billion-dollar companies.

Recent firms that held tender offers include Decagon, an AI customer support startup; Wayve, which develops self-driving technology; and ElevenLabs, an AI voice generator that conducted two offerings in under a year. Viswanathan said that "is an opportunity to say you will also get liquidity in your journey with us."

Viswanathan expects companies to remain private for 12 to 15 years. He stated that this timeline is not changing. To prevent talented employees from leaving for public companies, he added, "we need to make sure that there is liquidity for the employees."