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

Startups are staying private longer, leaving employees, who typically take a portion of their compensation as stock they can’t sell, with little hope of early liquidity. An increasing number of late-stage startups are recognizing this and offering tender offers to employees. These are transactions that allow employees (and, often, early investors) to sell a portion of their shares for a predetermined price to an approved investor.

初创公司保持私有化的时间越来越长，这使得员工几乎没有机会获得早期流动性，而他们通常会将部分薪酬以无法出售的股票形式持有。越来越多的后期初创公司意识到了这一点，并开始向员工提供要约收购（tender offers）。这些交易允许员工（通常也包括早期投资者）以预定价格将部分股份出售给获批的投资者。

To simplify the tender process, NewView Capital recently partnered with Carta. The collaboration combines NewView’s secondary deal-structuring experience with Carta’s equity platform. Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, pitches this as a way to help startups launch and manage liquidity programs more seamlessly. “The hope is that this partnership will make it easier for CEOs and companies to think about tenders,” he said.

为了简化要约收购流程，NewView Capital 最近与 Carta 达成了合作。此次合作将 NewView 在二级市场交易结构设计方面的经验与 Carta 的股权平台相结合。NewView 的创始人兼管理合伙人拉维·维斯瓦纳坦（Ravi Viswanathan）表示，此举旨在帮助初创公司更顺畅地启动和管理流动性计划。他说：“我们希望这种合作能让首席执行官和公司更容易考虑进行要约收购。”

He wants founders to think about giving employees early liquidity as a “win-win-win” for workers, companies, and investors alike. A growing number of startups seem to agree. Over the past three years, tender offers increased threefold for Series C and later-stage startups, according to a recent study from NewView and Carta. Plus, the startups that do choose tender offers are no longer just the most valuable private companies, like OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril, according to Viswanathan.

他希望创始人能将为员工提供早期流动性视为对员工、公司和投资者三方共赢的举措。越来越多的初创公司似乎也认同这一点。根据 NewView 和 Carta 最近的一项研究，过去三年中，C 轮及后期初创公司的要约收购数量增加了两倍。此外，维斯瓦纳坦指出，选择要约收购的初创公司不再仅仅是像 OpenAI、Databricks 或 Anduril 那样估值最高的私营企业。

For instance, last year, his firm, which specializes in secondary deals along with typical venture investments, helped facilitate a tender for Hightouch at a $1.3 billion valuation, when the marketing customization startup was seven years old. However, Carta and NewView also found that the overall share of startups launching these offerings remains relatively small, with just 44 executed in the first half of 2026.

例如，去年他的公司（除典型的风险投资外，还专注于二级市场交易）协助营销定制初创公司 Hightouch 在其成立七年时，以 13 亿美元的估值完成了要约收购。然而，Carta 和 NewView 也发现，启动此类要约的初创公司总体比例仍然相对较小，2026 年上半年仅执行了 44 起。

So Viswanathan wants to encourage other startups to consider tender offers, calling them excellent retention tools and morale boosters. A decade ago, being a unicorn was enough to attract talent, Viswanathan said, but with so many billion-dollar companies around today, that status may not be as much of a draw now. Offering a tender, he said, “is an opportunity to say you will also get liquidity in your journey with us.”

因此，维斯瓦纳坦希望鼓励其他初创公司考虑要约收购，称其为极佳的留才工具和士气提振手段。维斯瓦纳坦表示，十年前，成为独角兽企业足以吸引人才，但如今拥有如此多估值十亿美元的公司，这一地位的吸引力可能已大不如前。他说，提供要约收购“是一个机会，可以告诉员工，在与我们共同成长的过程中，你们也将获得流动性。”

Some of the companies that recently held tender offers include AI customer support startup Decagon, self-driving tech developer Wayve, and AI voice generator ElevenLabs, which executed two such offerings in less than a year. “The companies are staying private for 12 to 15 years. That’s not changing,” Viswanathan said. “In that interim, so that we don’t have this talent drain from high-quality venture-backed companies into their public counterparts, we need to make sure that there is liquidity for the employees.”

近期进行过要约收购的公司包括人工智能客户支持初创公司 Decagon、自动驾驶技术开发商 Wayve，以及在不到一年内执行了两次此类要约的人工智能语音生成公司 ElevenLabs。“公司保持私有化的时间长达 12 到 15 年，这一点不会改变，”维斯瓦纳坦说。“在此期间，为了防止高质量风险投资支持的公司出现人才流失到上市公司的情况，我们需要确保员工能够获得流动性。”