Carta was founded as eShares in 2012 by entrepreneur Henry Ward and serial investor Manu Kumar. Ward became CEO and Kumar became the company's Chairman. The company launched when the founders saw a need for venture-backed companies to electronically manage equity, issue securities, and track their cap tables.

Carta is a privately held company and is not publicly traded on NYSE or NASDAQ in the U.S. To buy pre-IPO shares of a private company, you need to be an accredited investor.

For SaaS users evaluating Carta, its pricing is influenced by the size of the customer's headcount. For a headcount size of 200, users should expect pricing to range from $12,300 to $18,600 annually. If the headcount is 1,000, the pricing increases to fall between $24,000 and $34,000 on an annual basis.

1. a formal document from the sovereign or state incorporating a city, bank, college, etc, and specifying its purposes and rights. 2. ( sometimes capital) a formal document granting or demanding from the sovereign power of a state certain rights or liberties.