Multi-Exit Startup Veterans Launch Mantle, an AI-Powered Co-Pilot to Help Founders Simplify and Automate Equity Management

• Mantle’s AI Co-Pilot Can Save Companies $100K in lost time, costs, and productivity and brings fundraising docs, cap tables, equity issuance, signings, and data rooms into one central repository
• The company is backed with $10.5M in seed funding from Eniac Ventures, Craft Ventures, and Vaynerfund

Amar Varma, the founder behind Xtreme Labs (acquired by VMware/Pivotal (NYSE: VMW)), Hatch Labs (parent company of Tinder, acquired by IAC (NASDAQ: IAC)), and Autonomic (acquired by Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)), today launched Mantle, a new platform that leverages AI to simplify equity management for founders of high-growth companies. The company is also announcing $10.5M in seed funding backed by a dozen funds, including Eniac, Craft Ventures, Vaynerfund, Sierra Ventures, Leaders Fund, and key Angels including Gokul Rajaram, Bill Lee, Russ Jones (ex-Shopify CFO), Farhan Thawar, Sundeep Madra, Kirk Simpson, and Chris Ye. After a successful beta with design partners, Mantle is now available for general availability.

Founders spend an inordinate amount of time in the early stages of a startup dealing with and thinking about issues around equity management and cap tables. Despite the considerable time spent and accompanying mental load dedicated to this type of task management, it’s not uncommon for errors to go unnoticed or small but important tasks to get overlooked. These discrepancies sometimes lead to awkward and unpleasant conversations with stakeholders and, in other cases, result in the possibility of significant financial loss.

Miscommunication costs US businesses $1.2T per year, equating to over $12K per employee a year. Mantle leverages AI to help Founders get answers faster, manage their ownership structure, eliminate costly mistakes (including late or erroneous communication), and relieve the unnecessary mental load that comes with trying to perform administration while also building a business.

“Mantle is addressing a huge gap when it comes to Founder and startup success. For so long, Founders have had to carry the burden of day-to-day administrative financial tasks, often needing to prioritize these in lieu of more high-level, strategic decision-making,” said Brian Murray, Partner & COO at Craft Ventures. “With Mantle, these processes are automated, and the automation can be trusted. It’s a huge emotional and time relief to rely on Mantle to take on these tasks so Founders can focus on the bigger picture.”

Mantle leverages AI to provide instant, company-specific recommendations based on a company’s financials, location, jurisdiction, and relevant market data. Traditionally, Founders were required to download their documents, read them line by line, and synthesize and analyze what they read, frequently needing to tap other departments for review (such as legal or HR).

Mantle’s “AI-powered Co-Pilot” automates this process by processing company documents, such as a term sheet, to provide clear, succinct recommendations for action. The process is more reliable than traditional manual processing. The platform even provides responses in the form of easy-to-understand visualizations, like tables and graphs.

Mantle’s features include:

• AI Co-Pilot: Uses purpose-built AI technology to parse through company-specific information and provide tailored recommendations to any question in an easy-to-use chat interface. An example of this is converting stock options in an offer letter approved by the Board. On the surface, this sounds simple, and it is. However, it is usually the source of costly “clean up” time for lawyers when it comes to financings and exits.
• TermSheet Modeler: AI reads company documentation to accurately provide updated financial terms and stakeholder data in seconds. Users can view the data comparatively in an organized user dashboard. The platform uses powerful tools to model your hiring and financing needs with visualizations that streamline your decision-making.
• Cap Table Manager: Effortlessly track and organize your cap table, providing a transparent view of your company’s ownership. This feature was created with a conscious build to map with the open cap table coalition data formats for compatibility in the industry.
• Issue Equity: Manage the various stakeholders in one place (e.g., Founders, employees, investors, board members, etc.) to issue option grants with predictive workflows and embedded signing in place.

“As a serial founder, I was never satisfied with the management tools at my disposal,” said Varma, co-founder and CEO of Mantle. “We saw a major gap in the marketplace for streamlining startup financial and business flows, and we knew there needed to be a reliable, automated, user-friendly tool that could help Founders focus on the things that matter most without requiring them to also take on administrative tasks. So that’s what we set out to build, and that’s when Mantle was born.”

In addition to Varma, the CEO, Mantle was founded and built by a group of technologists who have worked together for over a decade. Together, this team has built successful companies across multiple industries, driving more than a billion users to mobile apps, leading the digital transformation for over half of the Fortune 100, and modernizing the automotive industry by creating the world’s leading connected vehicle platform used by millions of vehicles.

To learn more and sign up for Mantle, visit https://withmantle.com/.

About Ten Key Labs
Founded in 2022, Ten Key Labs is the company behind Mantle, the tool meant to simplify startup financial flows for Founders. Powered by AI, Mantle helps executives keep on top of their company ownership with the ease a Founder would expect and the sophistication a professional would require. Ten Key Labs is backed by a host of investors, including Eniac, Craft Ventures, Vaynerfund, Sierra Ventures, and Leaders Fund. Learn more about Ten Key Labs and try Mantle at https://tenkeylabs.com/.

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