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Leadership1 distinct publisher3 min readPublished
Carta administered 71 tenders worth about $3 billion in the first half of 2026. Nearly 70% came from Series C or later companies, where the median offer reached $28.5 million and most of it filled.
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The growth is in ticket size more than in adoption. Work backwards from the two growth rates: a 34% rise in count off 71 deals implies roughly 53 tenders on the same platform in H1 2025, and a tripling in value off about $3 billion implies roughly $1 billion [1][3][1][2]. That puts the average deal near $19 million a year ago against about $42 million now, so average size roughly doubled while frequency rose by a third [3][4][5]. The size of individual programs is setting the volume line, while the number of boards discovering the instrument has grown far more slowly.
The stage mix explains where that money sits. Nearly 70% of first-half tenders came from Series C or later companies [5], and the $28.5 million median late-stage offer was more than three times the $8.5 million median for seed through Series B [6][7]. Sam Lawson of Flywheel Capital, a secondaries firm active in the market, places Series C and D as the point where liquidity used to arrive through the public markets [11]. On that reading, the tender occupies the slot a listing once filled in a company's middle life, which is a different job from replacing an exit.
One caveat is worth stating plainly: Carta reports the deals it administered, and it does not report what share of all tenders those represent [1]. The internal composition still carries information a headline total does not. A median subscription rate of 93.1% in the second quarter means the typical program filled nearly all of what it offered, while median seller participation of 57.9% means about 42% of eligible holders chose not to sell [8][6]. What limits a program's size, on those numbers, is how many holders decide to take the offer.
That gap is where the retention case gets its tension. Nick Bunick of NewView Capital argues the best programs treat tenders as a strategic tool rather than a standing commitment, preserving flexibility on timing, size and participation [9]. Flexibility for the board is legibility for the employee: once a company has run one, the decision not to run the next one is itself a message, and it lands on exactly the people the program was meant to keep. The instrument that buys retention this year creates an expectation that has to be managed next year.
One layer up, the record is thinner than the totals suggest. Carta ties the multi-year run-up to an exit slowdown that emerged in the second half of 2022, and notes that many VCs who raised funds over the past decade still have not produced significant returns for their LPs [4][12]. Its framing is that a tender can deliver liquidity to investors, employees and executives while laying groundwork for a later exit [15]. Cash reaching individuals still leaves the fund-level problem exactly where it started, so the case for tenders rests on retention rather than on returns.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Carta administered 71 tender offers during the first half of 2026, with a combined transaction volume of some $3 billion; both are the highest H1 figures logged in at least the past six years.
The number of tender offers administered on Carta in H1 has increased in three consecutive years, with combined transaction value also climbing significantly over that span.
Year over year, tender transaction count on Carta was up 34% in the first half of 2026, while total transaction value jumped 200%.
The upswing in tender activity has overlapped with a slowdown in the exit market that began to emerge in the second half of 2022; in certain segments, traditional exits remain elusive.
Nearly 70% of tender offers administered on Carta in H1 2026 were run by companies at Series C or later.
In H1 2026 the median offering size for companies at Series C and later rose to $28.5 million, the second-highest semiannual total of the past four years, while the median for seed through Series B dropped to $8.5 million.
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
1 article · August 31, 2026
Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
Precise numbers, one set of books
The figures are specific and internally consistent — 71 deals, $3 billion, 93.1% fill, stage medians to the hundred thousand — but they all come out of Carta's own transaction records, and no outside party can check them or say how Carta's book relates to the wider secondary market. Two details keep this from scoring higher: the report's headline claims a four-year high while its text claims the best first half in at least six, and no denominator is given for how many eligible companies ran a tender at all.
Real deals, one platform's book
These are closed transactions, not stated intentions: money moved in 71 tenders and buyers took up 93.1% of the shares offered at the median. That is genuine uptake. It is also small in absolute terms and bounded by who happens to use Carta, and the 42% of eligible sellers who sat out at the median is a reminder that adoption by companies is running ahead of adoption by the employees the programs are meant to serve.
Big percentages, small base
A 200% jump in value is arresting until you back out what it grew from: about $1 billion across roughly 53 deals. Tripling a base that size takes only a handful of large late-stage transactions, and the arithmetic confirms it — average deal size roughly doubled while count rose 34%. So the honest headline is 'a few much bigger tenders', not 'tenders everywhere'. The retention story layered on top comes from a venture firm and a secondaries buyer, neither disinterested, and the falling early-stage median cuts against the broadening narrative.
The scorekeeper is also the referee
Carta administers these transactions as a business and is publishing the case that more of them are happening and that they work. Its two outside voices point the same way: Flywheel Capital buys into tenders, and NewView Capital sits on the sell side of private positions. Nobody in this reporting loses if tender volume rises, which is why the missing price disclosure matters more than any single statistic.
Trust the counts, hold the meaning loosely
We are fairly sure the transaction counts and fill rates are what Carta says they are — it is in the best position to know and the series is consistent quarter to quarter. We are much less sure the causal story holds, because the sample is one platform's customers, the interpretation comes from interested parties, and the price at which employees actually sold is nowhere in the record.