Carta is rolling out a 401(k) offering aimed at high-growth private companies, tying retirement plans more closely to equity ownership in a bid to keep founders and employees inside a single wealth platform.
The new product unveiled Tuesday, called Carta 401(k), plugs Morgan Stanley’s institutional consulting business and Vestwell’s recordkeeping technology directly into Carta’s cap table and equity management ecosystem.
The company is pitching the arrangement as a way for startups to administer retirement benefits alongside stock ownership, rather than through a standalone provider.
For advisors, the move underscores how workplace retirement, private markets access, and cap table management are converging as large firms look to lock in relationships with founders, executives and early employees from the pre-IPO stage through liquidity and beyond.
Henry Ward, chief executive officer at Carta, said the firm has “rebuilt financial benefits from the ground up” to give founders and employees what he called a “best-in-class savings experience.” The 401(k) offering is designed to deliver institutional-grade portfolios from Morgan Stanley along with the digital-first administration tools that startups have come to expect from software platforms.
Carta customers will be able to tap Vestwell’s retirement technology, which integrates with more than 200 payroll providers to automate contribution flows and plan administration. On the investment side, Morgan Stanley is curating portfolios and taking on a fiduciary role, which the firms say should ease compliance and investment oversight for overstretched HR and finance teams.
Pricing is being framed as transparent and scaled for younger companies, with no asset-based penalties, and positioned to take advantage of SECURE 2.0 tax credits that can help offset plan setup and administration costs for as long as three years. Employees are expected to benefit from what Carta describes as competitive investment pricing.
The launch extends a growing partnership between Carta and Morgan Stanley. Over the past year, the wirehouse has tapped Carta as its exclusive equity compensation provider for late-stage private companies headed toward IPO and as a preferred wealth manager for founders, executives and employees preparing for liquidity events. Taken together, those deals give Morgan Stanley additional touchpoints across the private-company lifecycle, including a channel into workplace retirement plans.
The timing also coincides with major developments at both of Carta’s partners. Last week, Morgan Stanley said EquityZen, the private shares marketplace it fully acquired in January following plans announced in October, is cutting buy and sell fees in half to 2.5% for most transactions, an effort to draw more investors and shareholders into pre-IPO trading.
For its part, Vestwell announced a $385 million Series E round that doubled its valuation and brought total capital raised to $660 million, as it surpassed 2 million active savers and $50 billion in assets. The firm said its latest funding round – which fintech observers might note tops the $152 million Series F secured last year by the fast-growing challenger custodian Altruist – will unlock opportunities to expand its distribution, broaden access to more sophisticated investment solutions, and fuel ongoing investments in AI-native capabilities.
Aaron Schumm, founder and chief executive officer at Vestwell, said the company is “turning what was once a standalone benefit into a fully-integrated part of the wealth journey” by embedding retirement inside platforms like Carta’s. He has also described Vestwell’s broader aim as being “focused on an ambitious goal to close the $50 trillion savings gap in America.”
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