The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ward: Carta projects $600M base ARR up to $10B revenue by 2025
“Our base case, if none of our bets work out, we think we'll be around six hundred million in ARR, growing 50 to 70% year over year as a software business. If some of our more financial products that we're working on hit, We have a broad spectrum. These are hig…”
Ward: Cap table software is an N-of-1 market with one winner
“People looked at it as a, this is a small market, so it must be uninteresting. And what we looked at it is because of the network effect of this market, this is an end of one market. There will be one and only one platform for this.”
Ward: Carta will only enter markets where it can achieve monopoly status
“When we look at markets to go after, we really have three requirements. One is this has to be an end of one market. We won't enter a market that we think can be fractured where we would face competition to, we have to have some innovation on the business model…”
Ward: Carta will acquire and convert services firms into software businesses
“We'll buy as many services firms as we can that we can turn into software businesses.”
Capital markets suffer from public hyper-liquidity but zero private liquidity
“I think one of the big problems structurally in the capital markets world today is we have an environment of hyper liquidity in the public universe, and then zero liquidity in the private. And there's literally nothing in between right now.”
Great enduring companies will remain privately held rather than going public
“I think when we look 20 years ahead our vision for the world is that the great enduring companies will actually be privately held and they will find liquidity in private markets rather than public markets.”
Ward: Carta's 409A valuation business operates at over 70% gross margins
“So that today our four nine a business runs at over 70% margins.”
Startups staying private longer is a permanent structural shift
“The time it takes to build a company these days at the scale that venture and our investors would like us to build companies at just takes longer and longer. It's harder the journey's longer, and it's much more expensive. So I think, and I think that trend's g…”
The Silicon Valley talent war will be won with equity over salary
“I think the talent war at Silicon Valley would be one with Better equity comp than salary comp.”
Henry Ward: Small market size was Carta's biggest investor criticism
“The biggest investor criticism of Carta has always been small markets.”