Sounds like you've found the problem
In my experience, spreads are closer to 1 to 5%. The upper end of that spectrum dominates in the trading employees' shares, however, so there is a fair point here.
That said, CartaX isn't comparable to the open secondary markets. The latter are continuous. CartaX is periodic.
The better comparison is Nasdaq Private Markets, who offer a similar tender offer platform. Last time I checked, they charge a fixed fee plus something like $500 per trade. Compared with this, the 2% CartaX charge is only competitive for <$25,000 transactions.
> won't do anything below $100K
This is generally correct for open market trades. (Though folks like EquityZen are pushing the envelope on minimum transaction sizes.) It is not true for tenders.
CartaX looks like a pricier Nasdaq Private Markets. Perhaps that premium--and the ongoing disclosure requirements and lock-in--is worth paying for some issuers.
Seems like senior execs don't have much incentive to accommodate that...
That market is fragmented and disorganised and inefficient. But it’s deep, cross border and growing. Issuers write their own transfer policies which range from nope to fully permissive. The former aren’t interested in something like this because they aren’t focussed on shareholder liquidity. The latter don’t gain anything from forcing shareholders to only do business through Carta. (If they do want to do all that work, they can just do a tender. It is cheaper. And has no lock-in.)
This is a product in search of a problem.
Disclosure: I work in the private markets.