Cairnul and Capbase both help founders manage fundraising and equity-related work, but they are designed around different parts of the startup lifecycle.
Cairnul is an agentic, document-centered platform for first-time founders running early fundraising rounds. It connects SAFEs, investors, advisor agreements, documents, governance, compliance, and the cap table in one workflow built around the first 12 to 18 months of a company's equity life.
Capbase is a broader startup platform covering incorporation, founder and employee equity, cap table management, fundraising, investor relationships, compliance, banking integrations, and due diligence. Its workflow is designed to support a company from formation through ongoing equity administration.
Choosing between them
Neither product is universally better. Cairnul is more focused on the early fundraising workflow and the records surrounding a raise, while Capbase provides broader company, equity, and corporate infrastructure from incorporation through ongoing administration.
At a glance
| Category | Cairnul | Capbase |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | First-time founders running an early fundraising round | Startups wanting formation, equity, cap table, fundraising, and corporate records in one platform |
| Primary focus | Fundraising workflow and early equity lifecycle | Startup formation, equity administration, and company operations |
| Fundraising | Round-centered workflow connecting investors, SAFEs, documents, governance, compliance, and equity information | Investor research, fundraising tracking, term sheets, investment agreements, and payment processing |
| SAFE management | Four standard, unmodified SAFE forms connected to the Round, Investor, documents, funding, and equity records | Early-stage investment agreements, including SAFEs and convertible notes, with records tied to the cap table |
| Investor management | Investors connected directly to the fundraising round and related record | Investor CRM, investor research, relationship management, and fundraising tracking |
| Cap table | Three connected ledgers covering issued stock, advisor grants, and SAFEs, each linked to the documents behind it | Automated cap table updated as equity contracts and investment activity are executed |
| Company formation | Delaware C Corp formation | Core product area, including Delaware C Corp formation |
| Documents | Fundraising, governance, compliance, and company documents connected to workflows, with per-recipient watermarking and founder-approved downloads | Legal agreements, employment and equity contracts, corporate records, and due diligence document room |
| AI and automation | AI Startup Advisor with document-aware assistance and a fixed set of bounded actions | Automated cap table, document room, compliance, and recordkeeping workflows |
| Pricing | Free until you open a round. Then $110 a month billed yearly, or $130 monthly, per company. The investors and advisors you invite pay nothing to take part, and Cairnul takes no percentage of the raise. | Early Stage Startup plan at $999 a year covering unpriced rounds; Growth Stage at $4,999 a year for priced rounds, 409A, and option issuance |
| Product scope | Early fundraising and equity workflow | Formation, equity management, fundraising, compliance, and company administration |
Pricing, features, availability, and product offerings can change. Please confirm current pricing, features, and terms directly with each provider.
Nine differences
Cairnul
Cairnul organizes the fundraising round as the central workflow. The Round holds the exemption, the target, the board-approved authorized maximum, and one or more authorized term sets, and each investor moves through a defined sequence: accreditation, risk acknowledgments, signature, a cooling-off window, funds confirmation, then countersignature, which is the point the position forms.
The value of that sequence is that no step is inferred from another. Funds confirmation is something the founder does rather than something assumed from a signed document, and a SAFE signed but never funded can be cancelled without anything to unwind.
Capbase
Capbase also supports fundraising, including investor research and tracking, term sheets, investment agreements, electronic signing, payment processing, and automatic record updates, across both SAFEs and convertible notes.
The difference is where the workflow starts and how far it goes. Cairnul is built around running one round properly and supports post-money SAFEs only, so a convertible note or a priced round sits outside it. Capbase places fundraising inside a broader company and equity platform that follows the company past the first raise.
Cairnul
Cairnul's cap table is built from three ledgers: issued stock, advisor grants with their own vesting, and SAFEs tagged to the round and exemption they were sold under. Each line traces back to the document that created it, and updating shares or the option pool requires a supporting document attached as justification.
This produces an ownership record that can be explained rather than only read. A founder can follow any line back to the agreement, consent, or issuance that produced it, which is exactly the question a diligence reviewer asks first.
Capbase
Capbase makes automated cap table management a core product capability. Its platform updates the cap table as founders issue shares, employees or advisors receive equity, and investment contracts are executed.
For a founder focused on the raise, Cairnul keeps ownership tied to the documents behind it. For a company running several kinds of equity activity at once, Capbase's automation covers more of the surface, including the employee equity Cairnul does not touch.
Cairnul
Cairnul begins at incorporation, and it begins by reading the formation paperwork. Documents are uploaded during onboarding so they can assist the questionnaire, categorized into the Data Room, and used to propose the entity record for the founder to confirm, with low-confidence extractions left empty rather than guessed. The action by sole incorporator seeds the board roster, which is what determines who signs the company's consents later.
Where a document contradicts something the founder declared, Cairnul shows both versions side by side and asks the founder to resolve it rather than overwriting either. Where a document adds a director the founder did not list, it proposes the row with the citation, which matters because a first-time founder often does not know exactly who is formally on their own board.
Capbase
Capbase starts earlier. Its formation workflow covers Delaware C Corporation incorporation with the filing fee included, board setup, founder share purchase, 83(b) filing, foreign qualification, and company bank account setup through its Mercury integration.
That makes Capbase a stronger fit when incorporation and post-formation setup are part of the immediate need. Cairnul does none of it, and is focused instead on what happens when the company is ready to raise.
Cairnul
Cairnul treats documents as evidence behind the fundraising and governance record. Fundraising documents, approvals, compliance records, and supporting materials stay connected to the people and workflows they relate to, and every fact carries its provenance: whether the founder declared it, a document proves it, or the founder confirmed what the system read.
Sharing is controlled at the same level of detail. The Startup Profile and Data Room are separate grants that can each be withdrawn at any time, including from someone holding an active position, documents are watermarked per recipient, and downloads happen only when the founder approves them. What a person signed always stays visible to them.
Capbase
Capbase generates and manages a wider set of company documents, including founder, employee, advisor, and investment agreements. It also automatically populates its document room with legal contracts and agreements and supports secure sharing for due diligence.
The practical distinction is scope against depth. Capbase holds more document types; Cairnul holds fewer and knows more about each one, including who authorized it, what it supports, and who has been allowed to see it.
Cairnul
Cairnul keeps one contact record per person, however many roles or positions they hold, and the contact page shows the relationship as a sequence of completed steps with the next action named. Accreditation sits underneath it as a ledger of dated evidence records on the investor's own account, and each SAFE references the record that supported it.
That separation does real work. The accreditation questionnaire and accreditation verification are two distinct steps rather than one status, which is what stops a 506(c) SAFE going out on a self-certification left over from an earlier round.
Capbase
Capbase adds an investor CRM and investor research workflow. Its platform highlights tools for finding investors, managing relationships, and a Chrome extension, alongside digital fundraising and equity tracking.
Capbase is therefore more relevant when investor sourcing and relationship management are part of the workflow, which Cairnul does not attempt at all. Cairnul's investor record starts at the invitation and is built around what has been signed, verified, and funded.
Cairnul
Cairnul computes who signs each consent from the board roster as it stood on the action date, shows that signer set to the founder for confirmation before generating the document, and pins it to the action so a later board change never rewrites what a past approval meant. It also checks whether an investor or advisor is a director and routes an interested transaction to the disinterested directors when one is.
The raise then runs inside what the board approved. No SAFE can be sent on a round whose authorization is not yet effective, or on terms whose supplemental authorization is still out for signature, and a SAFE that would push the total above the authorized ceiling is blocked at send and again at countersignature.
Capbase
Capbase provides a broader compliance layer, including a compliance calendar tracking state and federal deadlines, registered agent service, corporate records, and government filing workflows.
These are different kinds of compliance and both are real. Capbase watches the calendar of obligations a corporation carries year after year, which Cairnul does not do. Cairnul goes deeper on the specific authorizations behind a raise, which is the part that gets examined when someone diligences the round.
Cairnul
Cairnul covers advisor equity as a full sequence rather than a document. An advisor signs the standard FAST, the board consent authorizing the grant is generated and signed, the restricted stock or option agreement follows, and the position then carries its own vesting schedule, its formation date, and its 83(b) task where one applies. One advisor can hold several grants in the same company, each with its own documents, terms, and schedule, never merged.
The reason for that structure is that a signed FAST issues nothing. Stock is issued only by board authorization, so without the consent in between there is a grant nobody authorized, and years later nobody can show how the advisor came to hold what they hold. Option grants carry one more prerequisite: the option pool has to be recorded, with the document behind it, before the grant can complete.
Capbase
Capbase extends into employee and advisor equity, contractor agreements, stock option plans, and ongoing equity issuance, and supports equity allocation as companies grow.
For a founder whose immediate priority is a first raise plus a few advisors, Cairnul's narrower coverage goes deeper on the authorization chain. For a company hiring and granting employee equity, Capbase covers ground Cairnul does not, and employee equity in particular is outside Cairnul entirely.
Cairnul
Cairnul's AI Startup Advisor opens as a side panel on whatever page the founder is working on and is given that page and its object as context, so a question about the round being configured or the consent awaiting signature does not have to be explained first. It works from a fixed, defined set of actions, and it never signs, approves, or files anything.
That ceiling is deliberate. Reviewing and approving a record, signing, and filing with a regulator are the acts the governance record is made of, so no configuration makes them available to the assistant, and the founder can see that on the permission screen rather than having to guess.
Capbase
Capbase emphasizes automated recordkeeping. Its platform updates the cap table, stock ledger, document room, and compliance workflows as equity and company transactions occur.
The distinction is what the automation is for. Capbase automates the propagation of records across a broader system so nothing has to be entered twice. Cairnul automates the thinking around a single workflow while keeping the consequential acts with the founder.
Cairnul
Cairnul has a free tier and a paid one, and the round is the line between them. Free is where you build the cap table, invite the people involved, and see what the raise will need. Nothing is charged until you open a Round. The paid plan is $110 a month billed yearly, or $130 a month for a short round without an annual commitment.
It is priced per company, never per stakeholder and never as a cut of the raise. The investors and advisors you invite pay nothing to take part, so a round made of twenty small cheques costs the same as one made of two, and the money never passes through Cairnul at all: it moves directly from the investor's bank account to yours.
Capbase
Capbase lists its Early Stage Startup plan at $999 a year, covering incorporation, stock issuance, board setup, cap table management, and fundraising for unpriced rounds, with the Delaware filing fee included. Its Growth Stage plan is $4,999 a year for companies moving to a priced round, a 409A valuation, and option issuance.
Capbase's entry tier is cheaper than Cairnul's paid plan and covers more surface, including the incorporation Cairnul does not do at all. The question is how much of the company's formation, equity, fundraising, and administrative workflow you want in one system, and whether you would rather have breadth across all of it or depth on the round itself.
The real world
A first-time founder posted in r/startups, partway through raising a friends and family round on a 506(b) offering. They had already missed their 83(b) election at incorporation and some California state filing deadlines, and were trying to work out how much of a first raise is pitching and how much is paperwork nobody warned them about.
It is a common position to be in. Most fundraising advice covers the pitch. Very little of it covers what has to be in order before anyone says yes.
First-time founder, already started to raisereddit.comhow much of it was pitching versus documents? And is there anything you'd get sorted before you start rather than during?
A solo hardware founder asked whether they could raise a small round from friends and family on a standard YC post-money SAFE, or whether everyone involved had to be an accredited investor. They had read contradictory answers and could not work out which was right.
The replies did not settle it. One said the SAFE only works with accredited investors. Another pointed out that Rule 506 permits up to 35 non-accredited investors. A third said it was a non-issue. All of it from people who had raised.
Can you raise money from family and friends with a YC post-money SAFE?reddit.comI keep hearing mixed things, some people are saying I can't raise from friends and family via a Y combinator SAFE and they must be accredited investors.
A broad platform would have covered several of these at once. A focused one goes deeper on the raise. That trade-off is the whole comparison.
Questions founders ask
Both, plus formation. Capbase combines incorporation, automated cap table management, equity issuance, an investor CRM, fundraising, compliance tracking, and corporate records in one subscription.
Yes, and that is the expected starting point. Onboarding asks for the formation documents, proposes the entity details for you to confirm, and uses them to seed the board roster it later uses to work out who signs each consent.
Yes. Capbase supports early-stage investment agreements including SAFEs and convertible notes, with generation, signing, payment processing, and cap table updates as contracts execute. Cairnul supports post-money SAFEs on four standard forms only, so a convertible note belongs elsewhere.
By treating the grant and the agreement as separate things. The FAST records the agreement, a board consent authorizes the grant, and the restricted stock or option agreement issues it, with the position forming at issuance or when the option grant becomes effective. Each grant is its own position with its own vesting, and a second grant to the same advisor needs its own authorization rather than topping up the first.
Cairnul requires the option pool, recorded with the document behind it, before an option grant can complete. If a valuation document is already in your workspace, Cairnul can read the value and prefill the exercise price for you to review; if not, you enter it yourself. Capbase includes a 409A valuation on its Growth Stage plan.
Not in the way a compliance calendar does. Cairnul's compliance work is tied to the raise: the exemption, accreditation evidence, Form D preparation, and state notice filings driven by investor residence. Annual reports, franchise tax, and registered agent renewals are not part of it, and Capbase covers those.
When the immediate problem is the round itself, and specifically the parts that are hard to reconstruct later: who authorized the raise and on what terms, what supported each investor's eligibility, when funds arrived, and how each position came to exist.
A fundraising round creates more than equity contracts. It creates a record of investors, documents, approvals, compliance, funding, and ownership.
Keep the work around your raise connected with Cairnul.