Cairnul and Pulley both help startups manage fundraising, equity, documents, and related workflows, but they are built around different priorities.
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.
Pulley is a broader equity management platform for founders and finance teams. It covers cap tables, fundraising modeling, SAFEs, equity administration, 409A valuations, compliance, reporting, and other equity workflows from seed through later stages.
Choosing between them
Neither product is universally better. Cairnul is more focused on the early fundraising workflow and the records surrounding it, while Pulley provides broader equity infrastructure for companies with more extensive cap table and equity management needs.
At a glance
| Category | Cairnul | Pulley |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | First-time founders running an early fundraising round | Founders and finance teams managing equity from seed through scale |
| Fundraising | Round-centered workflow connecting investors, SAFEs, documents, governance, compliance, and close | Fundraising modeling, pro formas, SAFEs, approvals, signatures, investor tracking, and broader equity workflows |
| SAFE management | Four standard, unmodified SAFE forms, each connected to the Round, Investor, documents, compliance records, funding, and resulting position | Guided SAFE creation, approvals, signatures, templates, status tracking, and automatic cap table updates, with custom agreement terms on the Growth plan |
| Cap table | Three connected ledgers covering issued stock, advisor grants, and SAFEs, each linked to the documents behind it | Broader cap table and securities management across investors, employees, equity plans, and other ownership workflows |
| Documents | Document-centered workflow with provenance, connected records, and Data Room | SAFE and equity documents, document storage, investor portals, and related equity workflows |
| Governance and compliance | Focused on fundraising authorizations, board actions, accreditation, Rule 506(b) and 506(c), filings, and related records | Broader equity compliance including 409A, Rule 701, Form 3921, reporting, and related administration |
| AI and automation | AI Startup Advisor with document-aware assistance and a fixed set of bounded actions | AI term sheet analysis plus automation across fundraising, cap table, equity, and compliance 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 | Startup at $1,200 a year including 25 stakeholders, Growth at $3,500 a year including 40 stakeholders and 409A valuations, Enterprise custom quoted |
| Growth focus | Early equity lifecycle and first 12 to 18 months | Equity infrastructure designed to scale from early-stage through later-stage needs |
Pricing, features, availability, and product offerings can change. Please confirm current pricing, features, and terms directly with each provider.
Eight differences
Cairnul
Cairnul organizes fundraising around the Round. The Round connects the raise terms, Investors, SAFEs, compliance steps, board authorization, documents, and close, and the terms on offer sit inside it as board-authorized term sets.
This gives the founder a structured fundraising record where the people, terms, approvals, documents, and compliance steps involved in the raise remain connected, and where no SAFE can be sent on terms the board has not signed off on.
Pulley
Pulley approaches fundraising through a broader equity platform. Its fundraising tools include pro forma modeling, scenario modeling, SAFEs, approvals, signatures, investor tracking, and cap table updates.
The key difference is focus: Cairnul is built around executing and documenting an early fundraising round, while Pulley connects fundraising to a broader equity management system.
Cairnul
Cairnul treats the SAFE as part of the complete fundraising record. A SAFE connects to its Round and term set, its Investor, the accreditation evidence relied on, funding confirmation, signer information, and the resulting position, and Cairnul fills standard, unmodified industry forms rather than authoring or editing them.
That means the SAFE is not treated as an isolated document or transaction. A founder can show which terms the board authorized, which form and version was used, and what supported the sale, without reassembling it later from email.
Pulley
Pulley provides a guided SAFE workflow for creating terms, securing approvals, collecting signatures, tracking investor status, and updating the cap table. It supports YC and custom SAFE templates, along with terms such as valuation caps, discounts, and MFN provisions, with custom agreement signing available on the Growth plan.
That flexibility is a real reason to choose Pulley if your round involves negotiated or modified SAFE terms, since Cairnul ships four standard forms and sends custom terms to your own lawyer. Choose based on what you need around the SAFE: a structured first-round fundraising record with Cairnul, or broader SAFE and equity infrastructure with Pulley.
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 position traces back to the document that created it, and updating shares or the option pool requires a supporting document attached as justification.
This keeps ownership information connected to the underlying activity, giving the founder a record that explains not just what the cap table says but which agreement, consent, or issuance produced each line on it.
Pulley
Pulley's cap table is part of a broader equity management system covering securities, stakeholders, employee equity, equity plans, exercises, scenario modeling, and other ownership workflows.
Cairnul keeps each position tied to the document behind it. Pulley makes the cap table part of a broader equity administration system with more stakeholder and employee equity depth around it.
Cairnul
Cairnul does not model the raise; it bounds it. The Round carries a target and a separate board-approved authorized maximum, Cairnul warns as the raise approaches that ceiling, and it blocks a SAFE at send and again at countersignature if it would push the total above the figure the board signed.
This keeps the numbers tied to what was actually authorized, so an oversubscribed round does not quietly exceed the ceiling recited in the board consent. Cairnul also does not display market benchmark ranges drawn from other people's reports, because a borrowed range is the kind of number a founder anchors a real price to.
Pulley
Pulley puts more emphasis on modeling the financial and ownership impact of a raise. Its fundraising modeling supports pro formas, discounts, pro-ratas, pre-money and post-money , SAFEs, option pool refreshers, and more complex fundraising scenarios.
If you want to model dilution outcomes and compare scenarios before you commit to terms, Pulley is built for that and Cairnul is not. Cairnul's contribution is on the other side of the decision: once terms are set, keeping the raise inside what the board approved.
Cairnul
Cairnul connects governance and compliance directly to the fundraising process, including board actions, signer sets, accreditation workflows, Rule 506(b) and 506(c), Form D preparation, state notice filings, and related records. The people who need to sign a consent are computed from the board roster as it stood on the action date, confirmed by the founder before the document is generated, and pinned to that action afterwards.
This means the approvals behind a raise are recorded as the company actually authorized them, so a founder asked later who approved the round, and on what date, can answer from the record rather than from memory.
Pulley
Pulley covers a wider range of equity administration and compliance. Its Growth plan includes 409A valuations, Rule 701, Form 3921, board approvals, and HRIS integrations, while Enterprise adds capabilities such as ASC 718 stock-based compensation reporting.
The practical split is timing. Cairnul covers the governance work that sits around the raise itself, while Pulley extends into the ongoing administration and reporting obligations that accumulate once employees and options enter the picture.
Cairnul
Cairnul treats documents as evidence behind the company's fundraising and governance record. SAFEs, board actions, compliance records, and company agreements remain connected to the workflows that use them, shared documents are watermarked per recipient, and downloads happen only with the founder's approval.
This gives the founder control over disclosure without breaking anyone's record. Startup Profile, Data Room, and cap table access can each be withdrawn at any time, including from someone holding an active position, while what that person signed stays visible to them.
Pulley
Pulley combines fundraising documents with investor portals, status dashboards, guided SAFE workflows, and broader equity management. This gives founders and finance teams visibility into investor activity while keeping the underlying securities information connected to the cap table.
The distinction is what the document and investor layer is organized around: Cairnul organizes it around the fundraising record and who is allowed to see which part of it, while Pulley organizes it around ongoing investor and stakeholder visibility.
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, files, or approves anything.
This means the assistance is grounded in the information already connected to the founder's current workflow, while the acts that create legal consequences stay with the founder.
Pulley
Pulley uses automation across its broader equity platform and also provides an AI term sheet scanner that analyzes term sheets, summarizes terms, compares them with industry standards, and flags atypical terms.
The two are pointed at different moments. Pulley's AI helps a founder read and evaluate terms being offered to them, while Cairnul's sits next to the workflow the founder is executing and explains what the step in front of them means.
Cairnul
Cairnul is intentionally focused on the early equity lifecycle, particularly the first 12 to 18 months. It supports Delaware C-Corps raising under Rule 506(b) or 506(c) on post-money SAFEs, with advisor grants alongside them.
That focus gives the platform a defined scope around the fundraising journey and the records, workflows, and equity activity associated with that stage, and it also sets a clear boundary: a priced round, employee equity programs, and later equity administration sit outside it.
Pulley
Pulley is designed to extend further into employee equity, 409A valuations, Rule 701, option exercises, HRIS integrations, financial reporting, and later-stage equity administration.
That creates a straightforward trade-off: Cairnul is optimized for the early fundraising journey, while Pulley is designed to become broader equity infrastructure as the company grows.
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.
Both products would have caught some of this. The difference is that Pulley is built to model what a round does to ownership, while Cairnul is built to make sure the round itself was authorized and recorded.
Questions founders ask
It can be, for the first raise. Cairnul is built around early fundraising and the connected documents, investors, advisors, governance, compliance, and cap table behind it. Pulley covers a wider range of equity management and administration, and it is well suited to SAFE fundraising too, particularly for founders who want modeling, guided issuance, and employee equity in the same platform.
Cairnul is free until you open a round. After that it is $110 a month billed yearly, or $130 monthly, charged per company rather than per stakeholder. The investors and advisors you invite pay nothing to take part, however many of them there are.
Pulley publishes annual pricing starting at $1,200 for the Startup plan, which includes the first 25 stakeholders, and $3,500 for Growth, which includes 40 stakeholders and 409A valuations. Pulley counts angel investors writing checks of $50,000 or less as half a stakeholder, which softens the cost of a long list of small checks but does not remove it.
No. Cairnul ships four standard SAFE forms, valuation cap, cap and discount, MFN, and discount only, and fills them rather than editing them. Founders who need negotiated or modified terms work with their own lawyer. Pulley supports custom SAFE agreements on its Growth plan, which is the better route if your terms are being negotiated.
Yes. Pulley's Growth plan includes 409A valuations. Pulley states that its in-house valuation team can deliver a draft valuation within three to five business days after receiving the required inputs, and that valuations completed through Pulley include lifetime audit review support. Cairnul does perform valuations and but does not require one. What it requires before an advisor option grant can complete is the option pool, recorded with the document behind it. If a valuation document is already in the workspace, Cairnul can read the value and prefill the exercise price for the founder to review; if not, the founder enters it manually.
Yes. It is made up of three ledgers: issued stock, advisor grants with their own vesting schedules, and SAFEs tagged to the round and exemption they were sold under. Each line links back to the document that created it, and edits to shares or the option pool require a supporting document.
The round opens on a Round Opening Authorization. Cairnul computes who has to sign it from the board roster, 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. No SAFE can be generated or sent until that authorization is fully signed. Pulley includes board approvals from its Growth plan.
Your first raise creates more than a cap table entry. It creates a record of investors, documents, approvals, compliance, and ownership.
Keep the whole round connected with Cairnul.