The major theme in venture over the past few years has been the paucity of exits, leaving investors and other shareholders frozen in place. Companies have recognized this issue and are addressing liquidity needs for both investors and early employees through tender offers, which have surged in popularity.
Our latest data from H1 2026 shows that some three billion dollars were transacted across 71 tender offers administered by Carta. That represents the highest H1 volume since 2022, signaling that the venture market has broken free from the liquidity desert.
H1 2026 didn't just beat H1 2022 in dollar volume ($3.0B vs. $2.6B), but it also involved more overall transactions (71 vs. 54). Many of the companies running these tenders may not be going public or getting acquired anytime soon. But they've still reached a level of maturity where they can consistently provide liquidity to their shareholders. Tender offers have evolved from an occasional release valve into a mainstream, permanent portfolio management tool.
Looking ahead to H2, generational giants Anthropic and OpenAI may crowd out the IPO window for other late-stage tech companies. That means that tender offers aren't going anywhere – if anything, expect transaction volume to go up in the coming months. And stay tuned for our upcoming deep dive into tender offers!
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Till next time,
Hamza Shad,
Carta Insights
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