Employee stock sales get a new pathway

As startups stay private for longer, employees who receive part of their pay in stock often have little chance of cashing it out. NewView and Carta have now joined forces in an effort to change that, aiming to make it simpler for companies to let staff sell some of their holdings before an exit.

The mechanism at the center of the partnership is the tender offer. In such a transaction, employees and, in many cases, early investors can sell a portion of their shares at a set price to an approved buyer. More late-stage companies are turning to the approach as the wait for a public listing or acquisition stretches on.

The collaboration pairs NewView's experience structuring secondary deals with Carta's equity platform. Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner of NewView, described it as a way to help startups launch and run liquidity programs more smoothly. 'The hope is that this partnership will make it easier for CEOs and companies to think about tenders,' he said. He encouraged founders to see early liquidity as a 'win-win-win' for employees, companies and investors.

Data from a recent study by NewView Capital and Carta suggests the practice is spreading. Over the past three years, tender offers among Series C and later-stage startups are projected to have grown threefold. Viswanathan said the companies running them are no longer limited to the most valuable private firms, such as OpenAI, Databricks or Anduril.

Even so, the practice remains far from universal. The same research found that only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026, a small share of eligible startups. Viswanathan wants to widen that group, calling tenders strong retention tools and morale boosters.

He argued that the standard recruiting pitch has also lost some of its force. A decade ago, reaching unicorn status was enough to attract talent, he said, but the number of billion-dollar companies today means the label carries less weight. A tender, in his view, 'is an opportunity to say you will also get liquidity in your journey with us.'