The Future of Venture Fund Administration
When we entered the Venture Fund Administration business in late 2018, we saw a similar problem to the problem we saw in the Captable and 409A Valuations industries.
In 2014, captable management was a manual service provided by paralegals using spreadsheets and email. We came to market with the value proposition that we would put the captable in the cloud and make it real-time. That value proposition took off and Carta was born.
In 2016, 409A Valuations was a manual service provided by valuation analysts using spreadsheets and email. We came to market with the value proposition that we would put 409A Valuations into the cloud and make them real-time. That value proposition also took off and today we do 80% of the world’s 409A Valuations.
In 2018, we looked at venture fund administration and saw a similar pattern. Managing the Schedule of Investments (SOI) was a manual service provided by fund accountants over spreadsheets and email. So we came to market with the same value proposition of putting the SOI in the cloud and making it real-time.
That value proposition took off too. We went from $0 to $100M in ARR in 48 months and it became the fastest growing business Carta has ever had. Today we service 2,500 venture firms across 7,000 funds reporting to 250,000 LPs. We’ve gone beyond real-time SOIs. By connecting our accounting platform to cap tables, investors can connect their SOI and fund performance directly to their portfolio captables. All fund and partner metrics are live in the Carta application thanks to event based accounting and real-time allocations.
The next inflection point of Venture Fund Administration is about to happen. Today we are releasing Carta Carry, the app to manage your Venture Fund from your iPhone.
From your phone you’ll be able to review your SOI, make a capital call, wire an investment, issue a distribution, book an expense, or contact your Carta team for anything else you need. Soon you will also be able to see the captables of your companies on Carta, your mark-to-market valuations, and KPIs of the companies you invest in. No more spreadsheets and emails. It will change the way you manage your venture fund forever.
Today it seems archaic that ten years ago captables and 409As valuations were managed in spreadsheets and email. Ten years from now we won’t understand how people managed their venture funds with spreadsheets and email also. Like captables, it will all be done in software.
Carta Carry is being rolled out over the next quarter to our current customers. If you are not a Carta customer yet, but would like to learn more about the next evolution of Carta Fund Admin, please email me at henry@carta.com and I’ll get you a demo.
