Tomas Milar builds financial infrastructure for private markets. Through Eqvista, his company works to transform private company equity into something transparent, understandable and usable—spanning everything from initial issuance and cap table administration through valuation, price discovery and shareholder liquidity.
The platform now serves more than 25,000 companies and operates Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation, a continuous valuation system tracking roughly $9 trillion in company value. Milar sees private markets shifting into a new era where static cap tables and periodic valuation snapshots no longer suffice. Instead, companies require systems that reveal share worth, communicate that value to stakeholders and establish clear routes to liquidity.
Beyond Eqvista, Milar has launched and expanded multiple ventures across the United States and Southeast Asia, including Startupr, IncParadise and Cheqly, a digital banking service designed for startups. His broader mission centers on demystifying intricate financial operations and constructing systems that accompany private companies through their entire lifecycle—from legal formation and banking relationships through equity administration, fundraising and eventual liquidity events.
Why has cap table management become more complicated for startups, particularly as they grow?
Cap tables begin uncomplicated. A handful of founders, several investors, perhaps an option pool. Complexity accumulates incrementally, which explains why founders frequently misjudge its scope.
Another funding round arrives. SAFEs or convertible instruments get issued. Staff members arrive and depart. Options become exercisable or get converted. Additional share categories emerge. What started as a simple shareholder roster transforms into a chronicle of decisions, each one reshaping ownership percentages.
The real challenge isn't producing an accurate cap table on closing day—attention peaks then. The genuine difficulty lies in maintaining accuracy across the months and years separating major events.
Errors accumulate consequences. A seemingly trivial error today can escalate into a serious obstacle during the subsequent financing round, a 409A valuation, due diligence procedures or an eventual exit. This is precisely why founders should regard the cap table as financial infrastructure deserving attention much sooner than they typically do.
What should founders consider before choosing a cap table management platform?
The foundational question should be: Would I trust this system during my next financing or due diligence?
Functionality matters, yet correctness matters more. A polished interface becomes useless if the underlying ownership information contains errors.
Next, think multiple stages ahead. A solution functioning smoothly with five shareholders must continue functioning after several rounds of capital, an employee option pool, multiple security types and potentially hundreds of stakeholders.
Examine how platforms manage equity grants, vesting schedules, option pools, varying share classes, SAFEs and convertible instruments, dilution projections, reporting capabilities and valuations. Assess the ease of extracting data and the support available when complications arise.
Look beyond current offerings. Company needs shift as the organization matures. Initial requirements might include a straightforward cap table and a 409A valuation, but growth may demand sophisticated business valuations, financial reporting valuations, transaction assistance or liquidity mechanisms.
Evaluate whether the vendor is building toward those future requirements. Is capability expanding? Is it responding to private market evolution and actual customer demands? A platform with the correct feature set today might prove unsuitable three years forward.
Equity records may reside within a provider's system for years. Avoid selecting based solely on your company's current state. Assess whether the vendor can develop alongside the organization you intend to build.
What does Pulley's shutdown tell us about the cap table management market?
Pulley represented formidable competition for Eqvista, and Milar expresses considerable respect for Yin and the organization they constructed. They penetrated a market controlled by Carta and demonstrated that challenging the dominant player was feasible. Such competition drives all participants toward superior product development.
Yet Pulley's closure underscores something those outside the sector often overlook: developing capable cap table software constitutes merely one piece of the puzzle. Constructing a viable business model around it presents an equally significant challenge.
These systems house some of the most critical records private companies possess, frequently for extended periods. This demands more than software alone. It demands specialized knowledge, responsive support and the capacity to advance continuously as both customers and market conditions transform.
This consideration occupies considerable attention at Eqvista. The organization learns from its client base daily—not merely about present requirements, but about what will be needed as their enterprises expand. This includes maintaining robust human support. When matters become intricate, clients require access to specialists who grasp the complexities. For valuations specifically, clients can engage directly with the analysts managing their valuation when expert guidance becomes necessary.
These client interactions combine with observations about private market trajectories to guide development priorities, whether that involves new valuation features, financial modeling tools, compliance capabilities or liquidity solutions.
The overarching lesson, according to Milar: A cap table provider must transcend solving immediate problems. It requires continuous learning, evolution and construction aimed at where customers are headed.
Is there a meaningful difference between cap table management and equity management?
Absolutely. An ownership record is what a cap table fundamentally represents. Equity management encompasses considerably more.
A cap table might indicate that someone possesses 2% of the company. Equity management must comprehend their path to that position, the security category they hold, what portion has vested, the consequences of subsequent financing, and how additional grants or transactions alter everyone else's stakes.
This distinction grows substantially more significant as organizations mature.
This is why the category's trajectory isn't simply transferring spreadsheets to the internet. The genuine potential emerges from integrating the cap table with valuations, modeling, compliance and ultimately liquidity.
At that juncture, the cap table stops functioning as merely a historical record. It transforms into financial infrastructure companies leverage to determine future directions. This guides Eqvista's construction: not merely as a repository for ownership documentation, but as infrastructure connecting equity, valuation and the comprehensive financial requirements of private companies throughout their growth trajectories.
How does valuation fit into equity management?
Valuation supplies meaning to the ownership figures recorded in a cap table. Knowing precisely that someone controls 10% of a company doesn't guarantee agreement about that 10%'s monetary worth—that understanding shifts considerably depending on measurement timing and methodology.
Discourse around "the valuation" frequently treats it as a singular figure. However, a 409A valuation, a financing valuation and a transaction-implied value can diverge substantially because each serves distinct purposes.
Valuation needn't remain as static as historical practice suggests, though. Through Eqvista Real-Time Company Valuation®, the platform now monitors private companies representing more than $9 trillion in value and demonstrates how valuations shift as company metrics, market information and pertinent news developments evolve. This encompasses company-specific developments and competitive landscape changes, since such occurrences reshape the context surrounding private company valuation.
This trajectory appears inevitable. Rather than examining valuation exclusively at particular moments, private companies will progressively gain visibility into value evolution between those moments and combine that perspective with equity information to support superior decision-making.
The integration of these components delivers genuine advantage. When cap table data, valuation information, market signals and financial decision-making operate within unified infrastructure, possibilities emerge that remain impossible when each component functions independently.
Source: TechRound
