NewView and Carta Launch Program for Early Startup Stock Sales

NewView and Carta announced a joint program on Thursday designed to help private companies facilitate the sale of employee stock before an initial public offering. The collaboration combines NewView’s experience in structuring secondary deals with Carta’s equity management platform. The goal is to streamline the process for founders who want to offer their staff a chance to convert shares into cash while the company remains private.

The push for early liquidity reflects a shift in the venture capital cycle. Companies are now staying private for 12 to 15 years, according to Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView. This extended timeline means employees paid in equity often wait a decade or more to realize the value of their holdings. Viswanathan stated that the partnership is intended to make tender offers a standard part of company planning rather than a rare event.

A tender offer allows employees and early investors to sell a portion of their shares at a fixed price to an approved buyer. NewView Capital and Carta data indicates that such offers among Series C and later-stage startups have tripled over the past three years. Despite this growth, the practice is still limited. Only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026, which is a small fraction of eligible companies.

Viswanathan pointed to Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as a recent example. NewView led a tender offer for the company last year at a valuation of $1.3 billion. The company was seven years old at the time. He noted that tenders are no longer exclusive to high-profile firms like OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril. Other recent participants include Decagon, Wayve, and ElevenLabs, the latter of which conducted two offerings in under a year.

Viswanathan described early liquidity as a retention tool for high-quality teams. He argued that the title of unicorn, once a strong recruiting pitch, has lost value because the number of billion-dollar companies has increased. A tender offer, he said, signals to employees that they will receive liquidity during their tenure. He characterized the move as a win-win-win for employees, companies, and investors.

The firms expect more companies to adopt this model as they seek to prevent talent from moving to public competitors. Viswanathan said the extended private periods are not likely to reverse. He added that ensuring employees have access to liquidity is necessary to maintain stability in venture-backed firms. The new program is available immediately for companies looking to structure their next secondary transaction.

Next steps for participating companies will involve coordinating with both platforms to set share prices and identify eligible buyers. The partnership does not change the underlying equity structure of the companies involved. It provides a service layer that simplifies the administrative and legal aspects of running a tender offer.