Henry Ward could not raise a seed round. In 2011 he had started Secondsight, a company that aimed to bring algorithmic fixed-income trading to retail investors, and the investors he met kept saying no.
He has said little in public about where he came from. A podcast summary says he studied at the University of Michigan, planning to major in math; a profile adds a degree in mathematics and computer science and a master's in market finance from EDHEC. Before Secondsight, he worked on software for fixed-income traders. His own account is that he is in this for the work, not the money: he has said he would do it for free.
What almost nobody notices is how Carta started: with a pitch that went nowhere for the person who had come to give it.
That belief was tested by the failed raise. A startup that cannot find seed money cannot grow, and Secondsight did not get there.
What almost nobody notices is how Carta started: with a pitch that went nowhere for the person who had come to give it. In that search Ward met Manu Kumar, an investor. Kumar did not fund Secondsight. He suggested something duller, a company to manage stock certificates.
In July 2012 the two founded eShares. The pitch was plain: replace paper certificates and Excel spreadsheets with one online registry. The product grew outward from there, into 409A valuations, compliance and eventually fund administration. In 2017 it took the name Carta. In 2021 an auction set a $6.9 billion pre-money value and a $500 million round led by Silver Lake valued it at $7.4 billion.
Ward has said it took ten years to reach roughly $500 million in annual recurring revenue. The idea that began after a rejection took a decade to look obvious.
The bill for the boom was public. In 2020 a former marketing executive sued, alleging gender discrimination; the claim settled in 2023. A former CTO alleged in 2022 that Ward dismissed reports of abusive behaviour; Carta denied wrongdoing, fired him and sued him, and the allegations are unproven. In January 2023 Ward cut about ten percent of staff, roughly 200 people, telling them that if customers suffer, so does Carta. In 2024 Carta shut CartaX and left secondary trading after a customer data controversy. The $7.4 billion mark is now five years old, and secondary-market estimates ran far lower.
Ward's own pitch was turned down, but the investor who heard it left with a different idea. The company that came from the no was not the one he went in to sell.