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Vendor trust scorecard

Carta vendor trust score

Trust scoring is the “is this vendor a fair counterparty” question, deliberately separated from product quality. Six dimensions, dated, sourced where events warrant it.

6.0
/10
cautious
Verdict

Carta's vendor trust profile warrants caution. Below-average dimensions need explicit mitigation language in the contract.

Vendor Trust Score

Is Carta a trustworthy vendor?

6.0/10
Mixed
Pricing transparency
Published rates; no hidden fees
6.0
Contract fairness
Reasonable terms; no auto-renew traps
6.5
Incident response
How they handle outages and breaches
4.5
Post-acquisition behavior
Customer treatment after M&A or PE
7.0
Executive stability
Leadership churn over 24 months
6.5
Roadmap honesty
Public commitments held
5.5
Trust signal log
  • 2021-08-09
    Series G raised $500M at $7.4B valuation
    Andreessen Horowitz-led; established Carta as cap table category leader.
  • 2024-01-05
    Customer-data scandal, central trust event in category
    Carta was publicly accused of using customer cap table data to broker secondary share sales without explicit disclosure. Founders surfaced the practice through Twitter/X and LinkedIn; material customer migration to Pulley followed.
  • 2024-01-07
    Henry Ward (CEO) public apology
    Ward issued a public apology and announced Carta would exit the secondary trading business. The trust gap, however, persisted in founder community sentiment.
  • 2024-04-22
    Material customer churn to Pulley reported through 2024
    Pulley publicly reported customer wins; Carta did not publish offsetting churn data, but founder community sentiment remained materially worse than pre-scandal.
  • 2025-09-22
    Carta secondary tender implies valuation markdown
    Secondary tender activity in 2024-2025 implied a markdown from the 2021 $7.4B primary valuation, though no public primary round confirmed.
Vendor Trust is scored independently of product quality. A great product from an unfair vendor still earns a low trust score.

How to read this score

  • Trust is separate from product quality. A vendor can ship great software and treat customers badly — or vice versa. We score the two independently.
  • 8.0+/10: strong. Few concerns at renewal or procurement.
  • 6.5–7.9: mixed. Negotiate hard on the lowest dimensions; monitor across the contract term.
  • 5.0–6.4: cautious. Add explicit mitigation language to the master agreement.
  • Below 5.0: concerning. Treat this as a contracted-risk evaluation, not a product-fit evaluation.
  • Updates: we re-verify scoring quarterly. Material trust events (acquisitions, breaches, leadership change, hostile contract terms) get logged on the timeline above.

Related editorial

Last updated 2026-05-09. Scoring methodology: editorial standards. Disagree? Tell us.