Carta (formerly eShares) raises $300 million in Series E funding to increase private market liquidity and continue building products for companies

Carta, a Mountain View, California-based provider of an ownership management platform for companies to manage their equity, has raised $300 million in Series E funding at a $1.7 billion post-money valuation to increase private market liquidity and continue building products for companies, VCs, and LPs, according to the company’s post on Twitter.

The round, which post-money valued the company at $1.7 billion, was led by Andreessen Horowitz, and also includes Lightspeed Venture Partners and Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments. Previous investors including Tribe Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Meritech, as well as new investors Tiger Global Management and Thrive Capital, also participated in the round. In conjunction with the funding, the company also announced that Marc Andreessen will be joining its board.

Founded in 2012 as eShares by Henry Ward (CEO) and Manu Kumar, the Mountain View, California-based Carta provides a platform for private companies, public companies, and investors to manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Carta is a SEC-registered transfer agent for private companies that enables seed-stage to pre-IPO companies to manage equity electronically with the participation of their shareholders, employees, auditors, and legal counsel. It digitizes paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to create a real-time image of who owns what at a startup.

Carta helps private companies to streamline how to manage equity from founding to IPO, public companies to track employee and non-employee equity in one place, and investors to modernize how they manage their portfolio and back office. Carta receives funding from a group of investors, including Draper VC, Expansion VC, k9 Ventures, Elefund, Subtraction Capital, Scott Banister, XG Ventures, Kima Ventures, Andy Palmer, and Structure Capital.

According to a blog post on its site, “Carta started with this question: Why can I buy Google stock on my phone, but investing in a private company costs $20K in legal fees, takes 45 days to close, and ends with a mailed paper stock certificate?”

In 2012, we began tackling this problem by offering an easier way to issue securities. When companies issue securities, we automatically track equity details on cap tables. Through our products for private companies, we reach venture capitalists and employees, laying the foundation for the ownership network. More than 11,000 companies and 700,000 shareholders (investors and employees) are now on Carta.

In addition to giving venture capitalists an easy way to accept securities and request cap table access from their portfolio companies, we’re also fixing the antiquated system of fund administration. In mid-2018, Carta launched its fund admin business and already have $9 billion in assets under administration.