Pulley shuts down and hands customers to Carta after running out of runway

Pulley Shuts Down, Transfers Customers to Carta

Pulley, a cap table management platform, is shutting down operations on December 8, 2026, and has entered an exclusive partnership with Carta to migrate its customer base. The company raised a Series A from Stripe and a Series B from Founders Fund but had not raised capital since 2022.

The shutdown reflects the structural difficulty of competing in cap table software. Pulley's core pitch was cost—roughly half Carta's $5,000 annual fee—but that advantage evaporated in practice. Outside counsel at law firms managing cap tables for venture-backed startups would bill extra hours to learn unfamiliar software, quickly erasing any savings. Once companies grew serious enough to raise tens of millions, the $5,000 annual cost became immaterial relative to total spend.

Pulley faced pressure from both ends of the market. Below it sat small businesses spinning up on Stripe Atlas, where cap table management wasn't yet a priority. Above it sat companies approaching IPO, which migrated to premium platforms like Shareworks or Morgan Stanley's investment-grade tools. That middle tier—growing venture-backed companies committed to Carta's workflow—was too narrow to sustain the business.

The cap table market itself has consolidated heavily. AngelList exited the space. Carta now operates with near-monopoly economics, which likely explains why acquisition didn't occur: the market is small enough that only Carta can sustain a standalone player. Pulley's founders faced either a modest acquihire or a shutdown. They chose the latter path and negotiated a customer transition with their competitor.