NewView and Carta Link Up to Speed Up Private Stock Sales

NewView and Carta announced a partnership on October 23 to streamline tender offers for private companies. The collaboration combines NewView's secondary deal expertise with Carta's equity platform. The goal is to help startup leaders launch liquidity programs with less administrative burden.

Tender offers allow employees and early investors to sell a portion of their shares to approved buyers at a set price. These transactions are becoming more common as the time between founding and a public listing extends. More late-stage firms are using this method to provide cash flow to staff who hold equity.

Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, described the initiative as a way to smooth the process for CEOs. He stated that the partnership should make it simpler for companies to consider tenders. Viswanathan characterized early liquidity as a benefit for employees, companies, and investors.

A recent study by NewView Capital and Carta indicates a rapid increase in these transactions. Tender offers among Series C and later-stage startups are projected to have grown threefold over the past three years. Viswanathan noted that the practice is no longer restricted to the most valuable private firms, such as OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril.

NewView cited Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as an example of this trend. The firm led a tender for Hightouch last year at a $1.3 billion valuation. At the time of that transaction, Hightouch was seven years old.

Despite the growth, tender offers remain rare relative to the total number of eligible startups. The same research found that only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026. Viswanathan wants to expand this number, arguing that tenders serve as strong retention tools and morale boosters.

Recent participants in these offerings include Decagon, an AI customer support startup, and Wayve, a self-driving technology developer. ElevenLabs, an AI voice generator, conducted two such offerings in under a year. Viswanathan said companies are staying private for 12 to 15 years, a trend he does not expect to reverse. He added that liquidity is necessary to prevent talent from moving to public companies.