System of Record Enables Liquidity
Alessandro Chesser, former VP of Sales at Carta, on the dynamics of CartaX auctions and preparing for liquidity
The real edge was not the auction screen, it was owning the plumbing underneath it. Carta was trying to make private stock move through one connected stack, cap table, transfer agent, broker, disclosures, and settlement, instead of stitching together brokers, spreadsheets, approvals, and paper transfers. That matters because most earlier players mainly built trading venues or broker workflows, while the hardest bottleneck in private liquidity is still issuer control, transfer friction, and trust.
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Carta already sat at the system of record for private equity ownership, with cap table software, 409A valuations, tender offers, and transfer agent functions. That let it auto reconcile sellers, buyers, tax lots, restrictions, and share movement in a way point solutions could not.
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By contrast, platforms like Forge, SharesPost, and EquityZen mostly attacked matching and distribution. They helped find buyers and sellers, or wrapped trades in funds or forwards, but the issuer still faced ROFRs, approvals, cap table updates, and fragmented records.
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That full stack ambition also created the core tension. The company customer wanted control and trust, while a broker style marketplace needs outreach, negotiation, and deal chasing. Later commentary makes clear that this conflict, not just product ambition, limited how far a vertically integrated exchange could go.
Going forward, the winning model is likely to keep the system of record separate from the broker behavior layered on top. The private market will keep moving toward more regular liquidity, but the durable value sits in the ledger, permissions, and settlement rails that every auction, tender, loan, or derivative product needs to plug into.