Startups are choosing to remain private for much longer periods, leaving personnel who receive equity as a portion of their compensation with minimal options for early liquidity. Because a significant part of their pay is tied up in stock they cannot immediately sell, workers often face a long wait before seeing any tangible financial returns.
The Rise of Tender Offers
A growing number of mature startups are beginning to recognize this challenge and are introducing tender offers for their staff members. These transactions give workers and early backers an opportunity to offload a portion of their holdings at a predetermined price to an approved buyer.
The New Strategic Alliance
To streamline this entire procedure, NewView Capital, a firm focused on secondary deals alongside venture investments, formed a partnership with Carta. This collaboration merges NewView secondary market structuring expertise with the infrastructure of Carta equity platform. Ravi Viswanathan, the founder and managing partner at NewView, highlights this initiative as a seamless way for firms to launch liquidity programs.
He noted that the partnership aims to make it significantly easier for corporate leaders to consider these financial mechanisms. He views offering early liquidity to staff as a beneficial outcome for everyone involved, including workers, enterprises, and financial backers alike.
Data and Market Trends
Statistics from a recent study conducted by NewView and Carta show that tender offers for Series C and later-stage startups have tripled over the past three years. Furthermore, the organizations utilizing these offerings extend far beyond the most elite private giants in the industry.
Viswanathan highlighted marketing customization startup Hightouch, part of the NewView portfolio, which executed a tender offer last year at a valuation of $1.3 billion.
Room for Broader Adoption
Despite the upward trend, the overall share of companies launching these programs remains relatively low, with only 44 transactions executed during the first half of 2026 across their data set. Viswanathan aims to encourage more businesses to adopt these programs, describing them as exceptional tools for staff retention and morale enhancement.
A decade ago, achieving unicorn status was enough to attract top talent, but with numerous billion-dollar enterprises operating today, that distinction alone holds less pulling power.
Recent Industry Examples
Among the enterprises that have recently conducted tender offers are artificial intelligence customer support startup Decagon, autonomous driving technology developer Wayve, and voice generation firm ElevenLabs, which completed two such offerings in less than a year.
Viswanathan emphasized that businesses are staying private for twelve to fifteen years without immediate changes on the horizon. He stressed the importance of ensuring liquidity for workers during that interim period to prevent talent drain from high-quality venture-backed firms toward public market counterparts.
