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Collin Furtado · · 3 min readA16z-backed Carta to shut India operations, lays off staff
Carta, a US-based capitalization table and valuation platform, has laid off nearly all of its staff in India and is shutting down its operations in the country.
Carta office / Photo credit: Carta
The company has reduced its India headcount by 22, retaining only about five employees to mainly help with shifting client accounts to its Singapore office, sources told Tech in Asia under the condition of anonymity.
The downsizing and closure come less than a year after Carta entered India by acquiring ZenEquity, an employee stock option plan (ESOP) management firm, in August 2022. As part of the deal, Carta would have inherited ZenEquity clients including Zomato, InMobi, Cred, Urban Company, Razerpay, Oyo, and Meesho.
Henry Ward, CEO and co-founder of Carta, broke the news during a town hall meeting with the India staff on May 31, telling them that folding up the business was in the company’s “best interest.”
“The announcement was kept pretty short and as soon as the town hall ended, the company logged us out from our laptops,” a person affected by the job cuts told Tech in Asia.
Henry Ward, co-founder and CEO of Carta / Photo credit: Carta
Employees had not anticipated layoffs as Carta had just conducted performance appraisals a week before, the source added.
Tech in Asia understands that the company will give retrenched staff a severance package of two and half months salary plus any restricted stock options issued to them that have vested.
Multiple emails seeking comment were sent to Ward and Carta, but Tech in Asia didn’t receive a response.
Carta entered Asia by opening its Singapore office in April 2021. To date, the company has launched two flagship products in the region: its capitalization table and ESOP software and its tech-enabled fund admin service.
The firm set up an office in the city-state after it secured backing from Singapore-based global investor EDBI.
This isn’t the first round of layoffs at Carta this year. The California-based firm shed 10% or about 200 of its staff in January, but people with knowledge of the matter said those affected were part of the US operations.
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The California-based firm, which entered the country less than a year ago via an acquisition, will transfer the India accounts to its Singapore office.
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