# Marcus Reilly, VP Finance at Groundwell (Series A, 38 people) — read of Cap Table AI, May 6 2026

> 9 years in startup finance, currently managing our cap table in a spreadsheet we're all terrified to touch, while the CEO keeps asking me why Carta costs what it costs.

## How I got here

Googled "cap table software alternative to carta" on a Thursday afternoon. We close our Series B in Q3 and I'm not paying Carta's per-stakeholder pricing on 60 new option grants. This came up three results below the fold. Clicked because the name is at least honest about what it does.

## What I clicked first

The scenario planning line stopped me: "what if we hire ten more engineers? What if this round is a down round?" That's the first thing on any of these product pages that actually describes my Tuesday. I spend probably four hours a month doing exactly that math in Excel and hating myself.

The hero headline "Cap tables that keep pace with your growth" is forgettable. It could describe Carta, Pulley, Piquidity, or a Google Sheet with good tab names. But I kept reading anyway because the feature list below it is specific enough to not feel like filler.

## Where I paused

"Export to PDF, Excel, and docusign-ready formats for investors." That's a real thing I actually need. Our last round had three rounds of attorney back-and-forth because our Excel wasn't formatted right for the 409A firm. If "docusign-ready" means what I think it means, that alone is worth 30 minutes of my time to test. But I have no idea if that means a template, a signed workflow, or just a decent PDF.

## What I distrusted

"Built by Wishdeal Studio." That's the only company name on the page. I don't know if Cap Table AI is a product from a software studio that makes lots of things, or if this is their main thing. That matters to me because cap table errors are not recoverable. If I mess up an option grant, I have an IRS problem. I want to know there's a company whose whole job is this, not a side project from a web studio.

Also: zero social proof. No logos, no "X companies manage Y in equity," no quote from a CFO or attorney. The features list is good but any developer can write a features list.

"Real-time secondary sale and tender offer tracking" -- I actually stopped here because I've never seen a product at this level of the market that does tender offer tracking well. That's legitimately hard. But there's no proof that it works, just that the feature exists as a bullet point.

## What would convince me

Show me one cap table walkthrough from a real company's Series A close. Not a fake demo with "Acme Corp" and made-up founders. Walk me through a round where someone had a pro-rata right trigger, a SAFE converting, and a down-round protection clause. That would tell me in 90 seconds whether this is a real product or a features slide.

Also: who reviews the legal instrument logic? ISOs and NSOs have specific IRS rules. RSUs have different cliff behavior depending on the plan document. If a securities attorney or a CPA firm has vetted the calculation logic, say that on the page. That's the thing that makes me trust cap table software.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. What happens when a SAFE converts and the cap table has a MFN provision -- does the software flag it or do I have to manage that manually?
2. Is there a way to invite our outside counsel as a read-only user, or does everything export-and-email?
3. What's the pricing model -- per stakeholder, flat monthly, per round?

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The scenario planning language and the docusign export claim are genuinely interesting. But I have no idea who built this, whether the math has been legally reviewed, and there's no pricing anywhere. I'd need one of those three questions answered before I'd spend 20 minutes importing our cap table.

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*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-05-06T00:00:00Z. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*