NewView and Carta Integrate Platforms to Simplify Startup Share Sales

Employees at private companies often face a long wait before they can sell the stock that makes up part of their compensation. NewView and Carta have launched a joint effort to reduce that friction by combining NewView's secondary deal expertise with Carta's equity management platform. The goal is to help startups run tender offers more easily, allowing staff to sell a portion of their shares to approved buyers before a public listing or acquisition.

Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, stated the partnership is designed to make liquidity programs smoother for companies. He said the hope is that the collaboration will make it easier for CEOs and founders to consider tenders. Viswanathan described early liquidity as a win-win-win for employees, companies, and investors.

A recent study by NewView Capital and Carta indicates that tender offers among Series C and later-stage startups have grown threefold over the past three years. However, the practice is not yet widespread. Only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026, a small share of eligible startups. Viswanathan noted that companies running these deals are no longer limited to giants like OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril.

Viswanathan cited Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as an example. Last year, NewView led a tender offer for Hightouch at a $1.3 billion valuation when the company was seven years old. He argued that tenders serve as strong retention tools and morale boosters for employees.

Viswanathan also addressed changes in the hiring market. He said that reaching unicorn status a decade ago was enough to attract talent, but the label carries less weight today given the number of billion-dollar companies. He described a tender as an opportunity for companies to promise employees liquidity during their journey.

Recent firms that have held tender offers include Decagon, an AI customer support startup; Wayve, a self-driving technology developer; and ElevenLabs, an AI voice generator that conducted two offerings in under a year. Viswanathan said private stages are now lasting 12 to 15 years and that timeline is not changing.

He added that companies need to ensure liquidity for employees to prevent talent from moving to public counterparts. The integration of NewView and Carta tools aims to support that need as startups remain private for longer periods.