Training Future Shareholders Before IPO
Charly Kevers, CFO at Carta, on progressive price discovery and investor relations
The real pre IPO job is not just raising money, it is training your future shareholder base before the stock starts trading every day. The right investors are usually crossover funds and large institutions that can first buy secondary from employees or early investors, learn the company through repeat disclosures and management access, and then stay on as large, long duration holders after listing, without forcing new dilution through another primary round.
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Secondary programs let a company swap who owns shares, not just issue more shares. That matters because a late stage company may want early angels or former employees to sell down, while bringing in Fidelity style or crossover investors who can support the stock through IPO and after.
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These investors usually want a dry run before the IPO. They want regular financial updates, a clear cap table, and time with management. That is why recurring liquidity matters, it creates a controlled setting where investors can buy in small steps and the company can practice investor relations before quarterly public reporting begins.
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Spotify is the clearest analogue. It spent years allowing structured secondary trading and making recurring disclosures before direct listing, which gave investors a pricing trail and gave management experience dealing with a broader shareholder base. The same logic applies to any company trying to avoid a shock transition from private to public.
The direction of travel is toward a staged IPO process, where the cap table, disclosure cadence, and price history are built gradually rather than all at once. Companies that do this well should arrive in the public market with better aligned holders, cleaner price discovery, and less pressure to use dilutive primary rounds as the only way to reshape ownership.