Clay / Employee liquidity
How Clay makes employee liquidity an investment in its team.
Clay’s approach is simple: people should be able to benefit from the value they help create before the company reaches an exit. Two tender offers put that belief into practice.
A private company. A path to liquidity.Clay
Public tender offer case study
Based on public company announcements. No Street involvement in these transactions or company endorsement is implied.
- Announced within nine months
- 2 offers
- Initial Sequoia purchase commitment · May 2025
- $20M
- Employee share sales offered · January 2026
- Up to $55M
What Clay did
May 8, 2025
Start with the people who built the value.
Clay announced a tender open to employees with vested shares and former teammates holding stock. Sequoia agreed to buy the first $20M in employee shares, with Clay also participating.
Read the company announcementJanuary 28, 2026
Offer the team another opportunity.
Clay announced a second tender allowing employees to sell up to $55M of shares. The offer was designed to give people more financial flexibility while the business continued to grow.
Read the company announcement
“When people feel trusted, supported, and happy, they stay longer and build with more conviction.”
Street’s perspective
Make equity part of your talent story.
For a founder, liquidity can make an equity offer easier to explain to candidates and more useful to the people already on the team. The opportunity to sell some vested shares can help employees meet financial needs while retaining a stake in the business. Clay’s example points to a practical starting place: design a focused window around your team’s needs, then assess whether another window makes sense as the company develops.
Clay’s founders describe their experience of employee commitment; they do not publish a causal retention or recruiting metric in these announcements. The $55M figure is an announced offer limit, not confirmed employee proceeds. The founder takeaway is Street’s analysis.
Sources
Checked September 12, 2026
- Clay’s first employee tender offerMay 8, 2025
- Clay’s second employee tender offerJanuary 28, 2026
Each company’s circumstances differ. A tender offer, buyer demand, or employee outcome is not guaranteed. Eligibility, company consent, and transfer restrictions apply.