Startup Staff Gain New Path to Cash In as Private Stages Extend

The average time for venture-backed firms to reach public markets has lengthened, leaving employees with equity compensation that often lacks liquidity. NewView and Carta announced a partnership on Thursday to address this gap by simplifying the process for startups to conduct tender offers.

A tender offer allows employees and certain investors to sell a portion of their shares at a fixed price to approved buyers before a company goes public or is acquired. The integration combines NewView’s experience in structuring secondary deals with Carta’s equity management platform. Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, stated the goal is to make liquidity programs easier for CEOs to implement. He characterized early liquidity as a win-win-win scenario for employees, companies, and investors.

Data from a joint 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. Viswanathan noted that these transactions are no longer exclusive to the largest private firms, citing OpenAI, Databricks, and Anduril as previous examples. He pointed to Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as a case where NewView led a tender at a $1.3 billion valuation when the company was seven years old.

Despite the growth, the practice remains a niche strategy for most venture-backed companies. The research found that only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026. Viswanathan argued that this low number reflects a missed opportunity for retention and morale. He suggested that the traditional recruiting pitch of promising future unicorn status has lost impact as the number of billion-dollar companies has increased. He described a tender as a way to tell candidates they will receive liquidity during their tenure.

Recent companies that have utilized tender offers include Decagon, an AI customer support firm, Wayve, a self-driving technology developer, and ElevenLabs, an AI voice generator. ElevenLabs conducted two such offerings in less than a year. Viswanathan stated that companies are now staying private for 12 to 15 years, a timeline he believes is unlikely to change. He emphasized the need for employee liquidity to prevent talent from moving to public companies.

The partnership aims to reduce the friction associated with these transactions, allowing more startups to offer cash options to their staff without waiting for an exit event. The integration is designed to help companies launch and run these programs more efficiently, addressing the financial needs of working professionals who hold illiquid equity.