Beacon Software

Beacon Software is a Toronto-based holding company that partners with bootstrapped software entrepreneurs who have built mission-critical, niche vertical software. Founded in 2023 by Nilam Ganenthiran (former President of Instacart) and Divya Gupta, Beacon acquires and scales businesses serving specialized markets—from youth sports to campgrounds to precast concrete manufacturers. With over a dozen portfolio companies and a "high scrutiny cap table" that includes sophisticated investors like D1 Capital, Beacon needed equity management infrastructure that could handle complexity without creating complexity. After experiencing friction with a competitor's platform, Beacon made the switch to Mantle.

The Challenge

A complex cap table that couldn't afford friction

Nilam's journey to Beacon involved creating nearly $40 billion in value at Instacart over eight years, followed by a stint as an investor at D1 Capital—one of the world's premier crossover funds. These experiences taught him a crucial lesson: information asymmetry drains organizational energy.

"Transparency is love because what you're doing is you're giving everyone the same shot at success."

At Beacon, this philosophy extended to equity management. With a diverse stakeholder base including:

• Sophisticated institutional investors who expect instant, accurate information

• Entrepreneur partners selling their companies into the holding structure

• A central team managing multiple entities and complex ownership structures

• Board members and advisors requiring real-time visibility

Beacon couldn't afford a cap table system that generated questions. Every inquiry about equity meant time stolen from building the business. For Nilam, who had learned the hard way at Instacart that you need to "just do the work," unnecessary distractions were unacceptable.

The previous platform created friction:

• Stakeholders regularly asked questions about their holdings

• The interface wasn't intuitive enough for diverse audiences

• Each question represented "an additional drain on my brain or my team's brain"

The Solution

Intuitive design that eliminates questions before they're asked

Beacon migrated to Mantle after experiencing the difference firsthand. For Nilam, who has used multiple cap table platforms across his career, the distinction was immediate:

"Mantle has been the easiest platform for us to onboard into, and we onboarded off of a different competitive platform. [Mantle] has been the most intuitive."

What made Mantle different:

• Seamless migration: Switching from a competitor platform was effortless, not painful

• Self-service clarity: Stakeholders could find answers themselves without reaching out to the team

• Intuitive interface: Diverse audiences—from technical founders to institutional investors—could navigate the platform without guidance

• Founder-led design: The care and editorial vision in the product was evident throughout

"You can tell the care that went into it. Over time, you start to find the editorial insights of the founder in the product."

The Results

Zero questions, maximum focus

By switching to Mantle, Beacon achieved exactly what Nilam was optimizing for:

• Eliminated stakeholder questions: "We get the least questions from our diverse and high scrutiny cap table about the things that they need to know"

• Protected team bandwidth: No longer fielding constant inquiries about equity positions or documentation

• Maintained transparency: All stakeholders have real-time access to accurate information

• Scaled without friction: As Beacon grows its portfolio of companies, equity management doesn't become a bottleneck

"I don't want to get questions. I just want everything to be there because anything that isn't there is an additional drain on my brain or my team's brain."

The ultimate validation for someone who helped build one of the decade's most successful companies: Mantle enables Beacon to practice the same principle that powered Instacart's success—just do the work, without unnecessary distractions.

Nilam's Favorite Mantle Quality

When asked what stands out most about Mantle, Nilam pointed to something deeper than features:

"The editorial insights of the founder in the product. You can tell the care that went into it. As someone who has used multiple platforms, that attention to detail and user experience makes all the difference between a tool that creates questions and one that eliminates them."

Nilam's Advice for Founders

Having been through multiple fundraises and sat on numerous boards, Nilam offers this guidance for founders and fundraising:

"Ask yourself: will I be happy making this person a ton of money? If the answer is no, they shouldn't be on your cap table. Life is so much simpler when you're disagreeing with your investors—which eventually will happen—if you like the person at the other end of the table."

Looking Ahead

As Beacon continues to partner with more software entrepreneurs and scale its portfolio of mission-critical vertical software companies, Mantle remains a critical piece of infrastructure that enables transparency, eliminates friction, and protects the team's most valuable resource: focus.

"I couldn't recommend it more highly. It's tremendous."