Carta as private market infrastructure
Carta and the future of liquidity
The bigger prize in private market liquidity is owning the system of record, not collecting broker fees on each trade. A broker gets paid when one transaction closes. The infrastructure layer gets the cap table, buyer and seller behavior, pricing history, and issuer workflows every time. Carta already sits inside cap tables and tender offers, which means stepping back from pure brokerage can make revenue look smaller now while making the business look more like exchange and market infrastructure later, which usually commands a stronger long term valuation.
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Carta has an unusual structural advantage because it is already the equity system of record for private companies, and its tender product can reconcile the cap table, handle transfers, and use holder history for tax and transaction workflow. That makes liquidity software look more like core infrastructure than a one off service.
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The comparison in the panel is broker versus exchange. Caplight describes making the same choice, routing trades to broker partners and taking only a slice because the higher value asset is the data and market plumbing that can later support hedging, structured products, and faster price discovery across private stock.
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This fits a broader market pattern. Private secondaries are still mostly brokered and bilateral, but the long term value is shifting toward platforms that aggregate disclosures, orders, and trading history. That is why issuer centric systems like Carta and Nasdaq Private Market are built around controlled programs and repeatable auctions, not just trade commissions.
If private companies keep staying private longer, the winning platforms will look less like boutique brokers and more like private market utilities. The highest value layer will be the one that companies trust to manage ownership data, run repeat liquidity events, and eventually support financing, hedging, and other products on top of that transaction history.