Quarterly Liquidity Trains Investor Relations
Charly Kevers, CFO at Carta, on progressive price discovery and investor relations
Regular liquidity turns investor relations from an occasional fundraising task into a repeat operating rhythm. Once a company lets investors buy and sell stock on a schedule, it has to show up with consistent metrics, predictable disclosures, and time from the CFO and CEO to explain the business. That is extra work, but it also trains a late stage private company to act more like a public company before the IPO shock hits.
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The practical shift is not inventing brand new reporting, it is packaging what already goes to the board into a repeat investor packet. Carta describes quarterly auctions as lining up with board meetings, while Kevers says much of the information already exists internally and mainly needs consistent timing and broader distribution.
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More frequent trading creates a standing promise to both existing and new investors. If a company says shares can trade every quarter or every six months, investors expect regular access to management, a stable disclosure cadence, and enough clarity to underwrite a price. Without that habit, buyers do not reliably show up.
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The payoff is better than liquidity alone. Repeated investor contact gives management live feedback on what metrics matter, helps bring crossover and other long term holders onto the cap table before an IPO, and can make the eventual jump to direct listing or public reporting much smoother, as Spotify showed with quarterly liquidity events and shareholder calls before listing.
The direction is toward private companies building a lighter version of a public market muscle set years earlier. The winners will be companies that use recurring liquidity to practice disclosure, shape their cap table, and build investor trust gradually, so going public becomes the last step in a process they already know how to run.