Private Stages Lengthen: Startup Workers Seek Earlier Liquidity

Employees at private companies are increasingly stuck holding stock they cannot sell, a friction that NewView and Carta aim to resolve through a new platform integration. The two firms combined NewView’s secondary deal structuring with Carta’s equity infrastructure to streamline tender offers, allowing staff to cash out a portion of their holdings before a public listing or acquisition.

The collaboration targets a growing gap in the market. According to a study by NewView Capital and Carta, tender offers among Series C and later-stage startups have tripled over the past three years. Ravi Viswanathan, NewView’s founder and managing partner, stated that the goal is to make these liquidity events easier for CEOs to execute. He described the arrangement as a "win-win-win" for employees, companies, and investors, encouraging founders to view early liquidity as a standard benefit rather than an exception.

The shift reflects a structural change in the tech industry. Viswanathan noted that the standard pitch of reaching unicorn status has lost its pull as the number of billion-dollar companies has grown. Instead, a tender offer serves as a concrete signal that a company will provide liquidity during the employee's tenure. "It is an opportunity to say you will also get liquidity in your journey with us," Viswanathan said.

NewView points to Hightouch, a marketing customization startup, as a model for this approach. Last year, NewView led a tender for the seven-year-old company at a $1.3 billion valuation. The firm is no longer limited to mega-caps like OpenAI, Databricks, or Anduril; mid-sized firms are also adopting these programs to retain talent.

Despite the growth, the practice remains rare. Only 44 tender offers were executed in the first half of 2026, a small fraction of eligible startups. Viswanathan argues that this low number represents a missed opportunity for retention and morale. Recent participants include Decagon, Wayve, and ElevenLabs, the latter of which conducted two offerings in under a year.

The underlying driver is the extended private life of major tech firms. Viswanathan stated that companies are now staying private for 12 to 15 years, a timeline he said is not changing. To prevent high-quality venture-backed companies from losing talent to public market competitors, he added that there must be reliable liquidity options for employees.