How Harmonic Growth Partners launched, scales, and stays lean on Carta Fund Administration

Harmonic Growth Partners, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco and Chevy Chase, MD, was launched in 2020 by senior investors who had worked together for two decades at a prior firm. They had previously utilized in-house finance teams, but knew fund administration technology had advanced enough to replace manual, ad-hoc efforts.

Co-founders and general partners Mike Ward, Nick Superina, and Brian Matthews chose Carta Fund Administration for its mix of innovative platform solutions and attentive customer service. On Carta, the firm launched its initial fund and grew into a second fund and a special purpose vehicle (SPV) without the costs and efforts of managing an in-house team.

Carta helped Harmonic build credibility in a challenging era

As an emerging firm, Harmonic needed to maintain its credibility with limited partners (LPs), many of whom were accustomed to institutional-grade operations. 

One of Harmonic’s priorities was ensuring it didn’t lose fundraising momentum while constructing its portfolio and building administrative capabilities. The challenges of Covid created another layer of complexity for the team, requiring them to manage the launch under novel working conditions. 

"In the beginning, there were many unknowns, because we were used to having an in-house finance team. We launched during Covid, so we didn’t have our usual daily interactions, which added question marks for us,” says Ward. “We were fortunate to have our team at Carta. That same team is still with us today.”

Carta helped the Harmonic team enact clear workflows and gain bandwidth to focus on investments and investor relations.

“LPs view Carta as the standard platform in this space. Even if they’re not familiar with it, it’s easy for them to get up to speed,” says Superina. 

“And when we save time managing the firm’s daily affairs, we reallocate it to investing and helping our portfolio companies,” says Ward. “That ties directly to our returns.”

Carta centralizes admin, banking, and compliance

Harmonic’s founders work together to accomplish ongoing tasks, dividing efforts, but collaborating closely on reviews and decisions. 

Carta Fund Administration supports the firm’s agility with straightforward workflows, providing simple ways to initiate capital calls, move money, manage recordkeeping, and monitor performance. 

“The self-service nature of the platform is really helpful. If we make a new investment, all I have to do is upload the documents quickly and easily,” says Matthews. “In many cases, the Carta system is intelligent enough to extract information from the documents right into the form—and it’s accurate across new investment documents, wires, and expense reimbursements. Without that, I would have to manually enter information. It speeds the process, plus everything being in one place is critical for the firm.”

This centralized structure streamlines Harmonic’s third-party processes, too. Carta connects to Harmonic’s bank partners for payment execution and proactively handles quarterly reports, routing them to partners for signatures. Then, the team at Carta helps Harmonic with additional reconciliation. 

“The integration with our bank has been flawless so far. It’s seamless,” says Superina. “We do most of the work ourselves, because it’s so great to use, but we review management fees and calculations in coordination with our dedicated Carta team. It’s easy to track, and the team is responsive.”

Harmonic is ready for long-term growth on Carta

With Carta providing accuracy and efficiency, Harmonic can scale reliably. The firm is growing into its second fund while also operating an SPV. As assets increase, Harmonic uses Carta to manage the corresponding increase in capital calls, reporting, and performance analysis without increasing operational burden. 

“Carta has grown with us on the back end, providing the services we need to manage two funds,” says Ward. “The platform seamlessly scales with key areas of our business without requiring us to build additional functionality at the firm. It also makes life easier on our limited partners, especially as they reinvest, because they can find reporting on demand.”

“We know we’re growing with Carta,” Superina agrees. “We’re pressure testing what we can do, and, as we scale over the next five to ten years, raising multiple funds and SPVs and bringing on more LPs, Carta will help us centralize around a source of truth. 

“Carta is a one-stop shop for Harmonic, especially because it’s constantly innovating with more automation and artificial intelligence over time. It aligns with our professionalism as investors in technology companies.”