There are tons of independent 409a providers, but the problem is that most charge absurd rates (for early stage startups at least), which is one of the ways vendors like Carta get startups hooked in and paying. You're basically getting "free" cap table software as a perk for paying for a reasonably priced 409a.

That said, as a data point, our startup recently did an independent 409a with EQVista, who had very reasonable pricing. They also have their own cap table management, but we don't use it.

I'd imagine the valuation software is actually pretty straight forward and maybe libraries iike this could be used for the various 409a valuation methods: https://github.com/topics/discounted-cash-flows Then you could build a network of third party advisors who would sign off on the valuation.

Thank you for sharing the library, seems pretty useful as I am going through it!

100% agree. 409a valuation is a challenging part. We would love everyone's support building it.