When San Jose-based education-technology platform zSpace began planning the process of becoming a public company, it thought selecting an IPO advisory service provider would be a relatively easy task. It would take maybe two or three months, estimated Erick DeOliveira, CFO of zSpace.
It turned out to be a lot more complicated.
“We quickly realized that it would take longer than anticipated,” Erick said. “We weren’t sure we would have had the bandwidth along with our regular day-to-day to start this off. We were surprised at how daunting the legwork would be to run two selection processes simultaneously along with the data management and cleanup we needed to do.”
They found their solution with Carta.
Erick DeOliveiraWe became aware that Carta ran this IPO advisory service. … It is fair to say that we were swayed right from the get-go.”
CFO, zSpace
zSpace makes and sells hardware and software that leverages AR and VR (augmented reality and virtual reality) in a variety of educational settings, from technical centers to elementary and middle schools and universities. Its base of 3,500 customers stretches across the globe.
The company had been a Carta customer since 2017, using the cap table and 409A valuation products for its equity management program.
The prospect of going public presented a new set of challenges, however. Even its successful growth had not necessarily prepared the company to navigate the transition from private to public.
“There are so many peripheral aspects of going public,” Erick said. “We may be familiar with an exercise and long shares, but there are many details behind the backend aspects of that exercise. There’s a vocabulary to this whole industry and you almost know what they mean, but not quite sure.”
In March 2024, zSpace turned to its existing cap table provider Carta for help. Carta’s IPO Advisory team works with clients on data migration tools to ensure cap table information is securely transferred, data integrity services by reviewing each cap table to ensure accurate data, and a host of other services designed to smoothly transition private companies to the public market.
“We became aware that Carta ran this IPO advisory service when we inquired about Carta’s public capabilities,” Erick said. “It is fair to say that we were swayed right from the get-go just by the awareness that Carta had this IPO ‘sherpa’ service.”
“It wasn’t until we got really into the thick of things—how the new public provider was receiving our information and how they could put it into their format—that we really started to come up against some complications.”
Erick DeOliveiraIt was helpful to have Carta stand with us in those conversations. … They have the command and the vocabulary and all the adjacencies.
The learning curve was steep: The zSpace executive team had to wrap its arms around the many technical details required well before IPO day.
“To Carta’s credit, they raised many of the pre-IPO items early on in the process which allowed us to build the workstreams into our timeline without causing a delay we would have otherwise been unaware of,”Erick said.
Part of that challenge was to communicate with various bankers, Nasdaq officials and others.
“It was helpful to have Carta stand with us in those conversations as I don’t think we would have been able to navigate those conversations anywhere near as effectively. They have the command and the vocabulary and all the adjacencies.”
zSpace went public in December 2024, after a smooth IPO transition. “Carta really helped get in the weeds with us to figure out what exactly we needed to do and how we needed to do it.”
