Stock Option Funding Reimagined:Vested’s Pioneering Use of Carta’s Developer Platform

September 7, 2023

In a significant step to help startup employees transform their stock options from paper lottery tickets to genuine compensation, Vested has entered into a game-changing partnership with Carta, leveraging Carta’s robust APIs. Vested is known for its innovative stock option exercise funding solutions, and Carta is the preeminent equity management platform. Together, they aim to utilize the power of Carta’s API to enhance the way startup employees approach and benefit from their equity.

While stock options are a crucial component of startup compensation, their complex and often unclear mechanics can be daunting for many employees. As a result, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stock options go unexercised.

This partnership takes a major step toward remedying this problem. Carta’s vast expertise, managing equity for an expansive swath of the private company ecosystem, combined with Vested’s novel approach to stock option exercise funding, promises startup employees a seamless, robust, and trustworthy equity experience. Notably, Vested’s use of Carta’s Portfolio API will allow employees to receive a funding quote in under two minutes.

Reed McBride, Carta’s VP of Business Development, notes, “Vested’s visionary approach to stock option funding aligns perfectly with Carta’s mission to create more owners. Our mutual goal is to equip individuals with the knowledge and resources they need to be confident equity holders, and to bridge the ownership gap.”

Vested CEO Dave Thornton adds, “We’re on a mission to ensure that employees are truly able to reap the potential of their stock options. By joining forces with Carta, the undisputed leader in equity management, we’re not just enhancing our platform — we’re rewriting the equity narrative for startup employees. And this is just the beginning of what we envision for the future.”

At its heart, this partnership underscores a shared commitment to education, empowerment, and equity access. In the complex universe of stock options and equity management, Vested and Carta stand together in ensuring that every startup employee can navigate their equity journey with confidence and insight.

Discover the synergy of Vested and Carta for yourself, and elevate your equity game. Dive in today at vested.co/start.

About Vested

Vested empowers startup employees to capitalize on their hard-earned equity, primarily by providing funding to help exercise stock options. The company’s overarching mission is to democratize access to equity, ensuring that startup employees both understand and have a real chance to tangibly benefit from the shares they’re granted.

About Carta

Carta is a software platform that allows founders, investors, and employees to manage equity and ownership. By making it as easy to issue equity to employees as it is to put them on payroll, Carta is creating more equity owners and taking steps to close the ownership gap.

Since its founding in 2012, Carta has grown to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity. Customers like Canva, Classpass, Intercom, and Union Square Ventures trust Carta to manage their cap tables, valuations, portfolio investments, and equity plans. Carta is trusted by more than 26,000 companies and over half a million employees to manage cap tables, valuations, portfolio investments, fund admin, SPV formation, and more.